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Shelley's Letters 



The Complete Works of 

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 

— **#•«• — 

Letters of 
Percy Bysshe Shelley 

EDITED BY 

Nathan Haskell Dole 




gruttatrate* 



London and Boston 

Virtue & Company 

Publishers 



Y*1 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Conies Received 
MAR 12 1906 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS 4t XXc. No. 

COPY B. 



/y 



Copyright, igo6 

BY 

Virtue & Company 



. LAUREL EDITION 

Limited to One Thousand Copies, of which 
this is set 

No*' 



Contents 



i. 

ii. 

in. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 



SHELLEY'S LETTERS 

PAGE 

Introduction v 

To Miss Hitchener, Oct. 26, 18 11 . . 1 

To Miss Hitchener, Nov. 11, 181 1 . . 4 

To Miss Hitchener, Nov. 24, 18 11 . . 5 

To Miss Hitchener, Dec. 15, 181 1 . . 7 

To Miss Hitchener, Dec. 26, 181 1 . . 9 

To Miss Hitchener, Jan. 2, 1812 . . 11 

To Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Sept., 181 5 . 14 

To Thomas Love Peacock, July 17, 18 16 . 17 

To William Godwin, Dec. 11, 18 17 . . 22 

To Thomas Love Peacock, April 20, 1818 . 24 

To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne, July 10, 181 8 . 30 

To Thomas Love Peacock, July 25, 1818 . 33 

To Thomas Love Peacock, Aug. 16, 18 18 . 37 

To Mrs. Shelley, Aug. 20, 1818 ... 41 

To Mrs. Shelley, Aug. 23, 1818 ... 45 

To Thomas Love Peacock, Oct. 8, 18 18 . 49 

To Thomas Love Peacock, Nov. 8, 18 18 . 54 

To Thomas Love Peacock, Nov. 9, 1818 . 63 

To Thomas Love Peacock, Nov. 20, 1818 . 74 

To Thomas Love Peacock, Dec. 22, 1818 . 80 

To Thomas Love Peacock, Jan. 26, 1 819 . 96 

To Thomas Love Peacock, Feb. 25, 1 819 . 108 



Contents 



LETTER 

XXIII. To Thomas Love Peacock, Mar. 23, 18 19 

XXIV. To Leigh Hunt, Sept. 27, 18 19 . 
XXV. To John Gisborne, Nov. 16, 18 19 . 

XXVI. To Leigh Hunt, November, 18 19 . 

XXVII. To Edmund Oilier, May 14, 1820 

XXVIII. To Thomas Medwin, July 20, 1820 

XXIX. To John Keats, July 27, 1820 

XXX. To the Editor of the Quarterly Review 

XXXI. To John Gisborne, November, 1820 

XXXII. To Thomas Love Peacock, Feb. 15, 1821 

XXXIII. To Edmund Oilier, Feb. 16, 1821 . 

XXXIV. To Thomas Love Peacock, Mar. 21, 182 1 
XXXV. To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne, July 19, 1821 

XXXVI. To Mrs. Shelley, Aug. 7, 1821 

- XXXVII. To Mrs. Shelley, Aug. 10, 1821 . 

XXXVIII. To Thomas Love Peacock, Aug. 10, 182 1 

XXXIX. To Mrs. Shelley, Aug. 15, 1821 . 

XL. To Leigh Hunt, Aug. 26, 1821 

XLI. To Edmund Oilier, Sept. 25, 1821 

XLII. To John Gisborne, Oct. 22, 1821 . 

XLI 1 1. To Joseph Severn, Nov. 29, 1821 . 

XLIV. To Thomas Love Peacock, Jan. 11, 1822 

XLV. To John Gisborne, January, 1822 

XLVI. To Leigh Hunt, Jan. 25, 1822 

XLVII. To Horace Smith, Jan. 25, 1822 . 

XLVI II. To Leigh Hunt, Mar. 2, 1822 

XLIX. To John Gisborne, April 10, 1822. 

L. To Horace Smith, April 11, 1822 . 

LI. To John Gisborne, June 18, 1822 . 

LI I. To Horace Smith June 20, 1822 . 

LI 1 1. To Mrs. Williams, July 4, 1822 . 

Letter from Mrs. Shelley to Mrs. Gisborne 



PAGE 
I20 

135 
139 
141 
144 
I46 
149 
152 
156 

157 
l6o 
l62 
I65 
166 
169 

175 
178 
l8l 
I84 
I90 
194 
I96 
199 
20I 
206 
209 
212 
218 
222 
227 
230 

235 



List of Illustrations 



The Storm {See page 252) .... Frontispiece' 
The Home of the Shelley s, 18 17 . . . 24 

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin : Mary Shelley's Mother 80 ' 

Mary Shelley 135^ 

Shelley's Memorial by Onslow Ford, R. A., 

in University College, Oxford . . . 237 




Introduction 




HE publication of a book in the 
series of which this volume forms 
part, implies a claim on its behalf 
to a perfection of form, as well as 
an attractiveness of subject, en- 
titling it to the rank of a recognized English 
classic. This pretension can rarely be ad- 
vanced in favour of familiar letters, written in 
haste for the information or entertainment of 
private friends. Such letters are frequently 
among the most delightful of literary composi- 
tions, but the stamp of absolute literary per- 
fection is rarely impressed upon them. 

The exceptions to this rule, in English 
literature at least, occur principally in the 
epistolary literature of the eighteenth century. 



Introduction 

Pope and Gray, artificial in their poetry, were 
not less artificial in their correspondence ; but 
while in the former department of composition 
they strove to display their art, in the latter 
their no less successful endeavour was to con- 
ceal it. Together with Cowper and Walpole, 
they achieved the feat of imparting a literary 
value to ordinary topics by studious elaboration 
and precise nicety of expression, without at the 
same time sacrificing the familiar ease without 
which letters become rhetorical exercises. Such 
an achievement demanded more leisure and less 
absorbing emotion than fell to the lot of the 
succeeding age. 

In the nineteenth century, accordingly, this 
artificial style of epistolary composition fell 
into disuse ; letter- writing ceased to be an art 
among men of culture, and became more of 
the earnest practical thing which it had always 
been among men of business. It was now to 
be seen whether this gain in simplicity and 
sincerity was consistent with a high standard 
of epistolary polish. That age possessed many 
poets infinitely superior in genius to Cowper 
and Gray ; but would their unpremeditated 
utterances, from a literary point of view, com- 

vi 



Introduction 



pare with the artifice of their predecessors ? 
The answer is not doubtful. Byron and Scott 
are excellent letter-writers, but their letters 
are far from possessing the classical impress 
which they communicated to their poetry. 
Much less is this the case with Wordsworth, 
Coleridge, Southey, or Landor. If that age 
had any master of epistolary composition 
among its wonderful poets, it was Shelley : 
Shelley or none. 

Was Shelley such a master ? The examples 
in this volume will enable every one to judge 
for himself. 

It will be sufficient to observe that, as a 
matter of fact, the general estimate of Shelley's 
j>rose will always conform nearly to the general 
estimate of his poetry. Shelley's letters are 
essentially and unmistakably the production 
of a poet, and compare with other celebrated 
letters precisely as his poems compare with 
other poetry. They do not, any more than 
his metrical compositions, represent every 
kind of excellence ; but, like the latter, they 
have a high, rare, and peculiar excellence of 
their own. They have not the frankness 
of Byron's, the urbanity of Gray's, or the 

vii 



Introduction 



piquancy of Horace Walpole's. These merits, 
admirable as they are, are not characteristically 
poetical ; the poet who displays them must for 
the time divest himself of his distinctive char- 
acter as a poet; and of this Shelley was in- 
capable. The peculiar virtue of his epistles is 
to express the mind of the poet as perfectly 
as Macaulay's express the mind of the man of 
letters, or Wellington's the mind of the gen- 
eral. Leaving disputable opinions out of 
account, and taking a comprehensive view 
of their general scope and spirit, they may 
be defined as a representation of the manner 
in which the poet, as such, contemplates life 
and nature ; and a very great part of the 
pleasure to be derived from them is the ob- 
servation of their intimate correspondence 
with the deliberate poetical achievement upon 
which they are an undesigned commentary. 
They prove that Shelley's ideal world was a 
real world to Shelley himself; and contain 
nothing to suggest that the man habitually 
lived on a lower level than the author. 

Most of the qualities of a good letter-writer 
were combined in Shelley, and fortune also 
favoured the development of his genius in this 
viii 



Introduction 

direction. Such a writer must love his occu- 
pation for its own sake, irrespective of the 
quality of his correspondent. He must be 
genial and expansive, and not take the pen in 
hand with a misgiving that he may be wasting 
his time. It is even more important that he 
should be free from egotism, and capable, even 
while he writes about himself, of merging his 
own affairs in general interests and sympathies. 
Shelley complies with both these requisites in 
an unusual degree. It is further necessary 
that the writer should, as Mr. Arnold expresses 
it, have laid hold of the right subject-matter ; 
and here again Shelley was fortunate. Fate 
had made him a sojourner in a land where the 
works of man vie with the works of nature ; 
where the description of inanimate beauty may 
be relieved by constant reference to the produc- 
tions of human genius, and nature and art alike 
are endeared to the cultivated observer or reader 
by a thousand associations and recollections. 

A person gifted like Shelley could not write 
ill where Byron and De Stael had written well ; 
but the truest charm of his letters is, after all, 
rather moral than literary. It is not so much 
the eloquence of the diction as the genuineness 

ix 



Introduction 



of the informing enthusiasm, the effusiveness 
of an opulent soul delighting in giving, and 
eager to impart the pleasure it has received. 
When not writing on Italy, Shelley is still 
most commonly fortunate in the subject of his 
letter, which derives interest either from some- 
thing in the character or situation of the person 
to whom it is addressed, or from its reference 
to some adventure, or opinion, or production 
of his own. He is armed against triviality by 
never writing without a legitimate motive. He 
was by no means a regular or systematic corre- 
spondent, and before taking the pen in hand 
required the visitation of an emergency or an 
impulse. But such dictates of the spirit were 
frequent, and affected him like the impulses 
that prompt to poetical composition : nor was 
the product less distinctly an emanation of the 
intellect and the heart. 

Such passages as the description of the Prot- 
estant cemetery (p. 85 of this collection), or 
the subtle interweaving of pleasurable feeling 
with even sweeter sadness in the last paragraph 
of the last letter Shelley wrote (p. 231), are 
lyrics in everything but structure. The for- 
mer, indeed, has been expanded into a magnif- 



Introduction 



icent passage of the " Adonais ; " and although 
to compare its sweet, brief note with the multi- 
tudinous harmonies of the elegy is like com- 
paring the hymn of Pan to the hymn of 
Apollo, its music is not less truly poetry. 

The main purpose of a selection adapted to 
the principle of a miniature library of master- 
pieces must be to reproduce whatever is most 
choice in the general body of Shelley's corre- 
spondence ; an object involving the reproduc- 
tion of nearly all the descriptions of Italian 
scenery and works of art addressed to Peacock, 
and those later letters, principally to Gisborne, 
which, if only by fitful glimpses, reveal a sub- 
tlety of mental introspection more exceptional 
than any brilliancy of word-painting. The 
former exhibit his powers of sustained elo- 
quence in prose composition at their highest ; 
the latter represent the development of his 
prose style, corresponding with that of his 
later lyrics, in the direction of intensity and 
transparency. The letters to Leigh Hunt 
and Horace Smith, less interesting psychologi- 
cally, are still too important to be omitted, and 
the same remark applies to the six early letters 
to Miss Hitchener, selected, by the kind per- 

xi 



Introduction 

mission of the possessor, Mr. H. J. Slack, 
from a much more extensive collection. It 
cannot be expected that these juvenile effusions 
should be worthy of the maturer Shelley ; they 
fall, indeed, far short of the standard which 
should, as a rule, be maintained in a selection 
like the present. They serve, nevertheless, as 
an appropriate prologue, displaying Shelley 
from the first in the character which, although 
with more dignity and modesty than his inex- 
perience at that time permitted, he consistently 
supported to the last ; while their biographical 
value is very considerable. Shelley's account of 
his marriage indicates what germs of estrange- 
ment lurked from the first in that ill-starred 
union ; his appreciation of Southey is honour- 
able to both ; and his exposition of his religious 
opinions shows that Mr. Hogg was not wrong 
in calling cc Queen Mab " a Platonic poem, and 
makes it more unaccountable than ever how 
he should, even in the midst of his youthful 
ferment, have fancied himself an atheist. 
A very few passages from these letters have been 
printed in the late Mr. MacCarthy's interesting 
volume on "Shelley's Early Life" (1872). 
The remainder of the Hitchener set of letters 
xii 



Introduction 

chiefly relate to Shelley's expedition to Ireland, 
an adventure so episodical that reference to it 
may well be omitted from a selection aiming 
before all things at harmonious completeness. 
The seventh letter, addressed to Mr. Hogg, 
was first printed by Mr. Forman, and though 
intrinsically unimportant, is in point of style 
and feeling a valuable link between the Hitch- 
ener letters and the letters from Italy. The 
latter are chiefly selected from those first 
published in Mrs. Shelley's edition of Shelley's 
prose works (1840), now out of print, and 
only accessible in the handsome but costly 
edition of Mr. Forman. A few, however, 
have been added from the " Shelley Memorials" 
and the supplementary collection published by 
Mr. Peacock in Frasers Magazine. Two are 
entirely new: the deeply interesting account 
of little Allegra in her convent (No. XXXIX.), 
and the letter to Horace Smith (No. XLVII.), 
recovered by Mr. Forman's diligence from the 
Antipodes, and now published for the first 
time by his permission. 

The total number of letters printed in Mr. 
Forman's edition is 127, and forty or fifty 
more might be added from the " Shelley Me- 
xiii 



Introduction 



morials " and Mr. Hogg's biography ; those 
derived from the latter source, however, with 
two or three remarkable exceptions, would 
hardly be worth reprinting. The present 
selection contains fifty-three, or between a third 
and a fourth of the whole, and includes nearly 
all those of any especial length or elaboration. 
The numerous curtailments which will be re- 
marked follow in some instances the original 
editions, but have generally been made with 
deliberate reference to the character of this 
series of publications as a repository of choice 
things, and choice things only. With Shelley, 
indeed, distinction is the rule, commonplace 
the exception; it has, nevertheless, — bearing 
in mind that the purpose of this publication is 
not biographical but literary, — been found 
desirable to omit numerous passages of merely 
personal interest. The text has never been 
tampered with, or the freedom of Shelley's 
utterance restrained, even when he touches 
upon religious subjects. To leave this side 
of his mind in obscurity would be unfair both 
to him and his readers ; nor is there anything 
in the expression of his sentiments that can 
reasonably cause offence, 
xiv 



Introduction 



Mrs. Shelley's dramatic and circumstantial 
account of Shelley's death and the attendant 
occurrences was first published complete by 
Mr. Forman in Macmillaris Magazine for June, 
1880. Some extracts had been given by the 
present editor in the Fortnightly Review for 
June, 1 878. It will be seen that his obligations 
both to Mr. Forman and to Mr. Slack are 
very considerable, and he is no less indebted 
to the generous aid of Mr. W. M. Rossetti. 

R. Garnett. 

April 14, 1882, 




XV 




Shelley's Letters 




TO MISS HITCHENER 

Mr. Strickland's, Blake St., York. 
[Saturday, 26 October, 181 1?] 

I hesitate not a moment to 
write to you : rare though it 
be in this existence, commun- 
ion with you can unite mental 
benefit with pure gratification. 
I will explain, however, the 
circumstances which caused my 
marriage : these must certainly have caused 
much conjecture in your mind. Some time 
ago, when my sister was at Mrs. Fenning's 
school, she contracted an intimacy with Har- 
riet. At that period I attentively watched 



Shelley's Letters 

over my sister, designing, if possible, to add 
her to the list of the good, the disinterested, 
the free. I desired therefore to investigate 
Harriet's character ; for which purpose I called 
on her, requested to correspond with her, de- 
signing that her advancement should keep pace 
with, and possibly accelerate, that of my sister. 
Her ready and frank acceptance of my pro- 
posal pleased me ; and, though with ideas the 
remotest to those which have led to this con- 
clusion of our intimacy, I continued to corre- 
spond with her for some time. The frequency 
of her letters became greater during my stay in 
Wales. I answered them : they became inter- 
esting. They contained complaints of the 
irrational conduct of her relatives, and the mis- 
ery of living where she could love no one. 
Suicide was with her a favourite theme, and 
her total uselessness was urged as its defence. 
This I admitted supposing she could prove her 
inutility, and that she was powerless. Her 
letters became more and more gloomy. At 
length one assumed a tone of such despair as 
induced me to quit Wales precipitately. I ar- 
rived in London. I was shocked at observing 
the alteration of her looks. Little did I divine 



Shelley's Letters 

its cause : she had become violently attached 
to me, and feared that I should not return her 
attachment. Prejudice made the confession 
painful. It was impossible to avoid being 
much affected ; I promised to unite my fate to 
hers. I stayed in London several days, during 
which she recovered her spirits. I had prom- 
ised at her bidding to come again to London. 
They endeavoured to compel her to return to 
a school where malice and pride embittered 
every hour : she wrote to me. I came to 
London, I proposed marriage, for the reasons 
which I have given you, and she complied. 
Blame me if thou wilt, dearest friend, for still 
thou art dearest to me : yet pity even this error, 
if thou blamest me. If Harriet be not, at six- 
teen, all that you are at a more advanced age, 
assist me to mould a really noble soul into all 
that can make its nobleness useful and lovely. 
Lovely it is now, or I am the weakest slave to 
error. p. b. s. 




Shelley's Letters 
II. 

TO MISS HITCHENER 

Chesnut Cottage, Keswick. 
[Thursday, n November, 1811.] 
• ••••••• 

What is love or friendship ? Is it some- 
thing material — a ball, an apple, a plaything 

— which must be taken from one and given 
to another? Is it capable of no extension, no 
communication ? Lord Kaimes defines love 
to be a particularization of the general passion. 
But this is the love of sensation, of sentiment 

— the absurdest of absurd varieties : it is the 
love of pleasure, not the love of happiness. 
The one is a love which is self-centred, self- 
devoted, self-interested : it desires its own inter- 
est; it is the parent of jealousy. Its object is 
the plaything which it desires to monopolize. 
Selfishness, monopoly, is its very soul ; and to 
communicate to others part of this love were 
to destroy its essence, to annihilate this chain 
of straw. But love, the love which we worship 

4 



Shelley's Letters 

— virtue, heaven, disinterestedness — in a word 
friendship — which has as much to do with 
the senses as with yonder mountains ; that 
which seeks the good of all, — the good of its 
object first, not because that object is a minister 
to its pleasures, not merely because it even 
contributes to its happiness, but because it is 
really worthy, because it has powers, sensibili- 
ties, is capable of abstracting self, and loving 
virtue for virtue's own loveliness — desiring 
the happiness of others, not from the obliga- 
tion of fearing hell or desiring heaven, but for 
pure, simple, unsophisticated virtue. 

p. b. s. 



III. 



TO MISS HITCHENER 

Keswick, Cumberland. 
[Sunday, 24 November, 1811.] 
• ••••••• 

You talk of a future state: "is not this 
imagination," you ask, " a proof of it ? " To 
me it appears so, to me everything proves it. 
But what we earnestly desire we are very much 
prejudiced in favour of. It seems to me that 

5 



Shelley's Letters 

everything lives^ again. What is the soul ? 
Look at yonder flower. The blast of the 
north sweeps it from the earth ; it withers 
beneath the breath of the destroyer. Yet that 
flower hath a soul : for what is soul but that 
which makes an organized being to be what it 
is, without which it would not be so? On 
this hypothesis must not that (the soul) with- 
out which a flower cannot be a flower exist, 
when the earthly flower hath perished ? Yet 
where does it exist — in what state of being? 
Have not flowers also some end which nature 
destines their being able to answer? Doubt- 
less, it ill becomes us to deny this, because we 
cannot certainly discover it ; since so many- 
analogies seem to favour the probability of this 
hypothesis. 

I will say, then, that all nature is animated ; 
that miscroscopic vision, as it has discovered 
to us millions of animated beings whose pur- 
suits and passions are as eagerly followed as 
our own, so might it, if extended, find that 
nature itself was but a mass of organized ani- 
mation. Perhaps the animative intellect of all 
this is in a constant rotation of change : perhaps 
a future state is no other than a different mode 

6 



Shelley's Letters 

of terrestrial existence to which we have fitted 
ourselves in this mode. 

Is there any probability in this supposition ? 
On this plan, congenial souls must meet ; because, 
having fitted themselves for nearly the same 
mode of being, they cannot fail to be near 
each other. Free-will must give energy to this 
infinite mass of being, and thereby constitute 
virtue. If our change be in this mortal life, 
do not fear that we shall be among the grovel- 
ling souls of heroes, aristocrats, and commer- 
cialists. Adieu. p. b. s. 



IV. 

TO MISS HITCHENER 

Keswick [Sunday, 15 December, 181 1]. 

My dearest Friend : — You will before 
now have my last letter. I have felt the distrust- 
ful recurrences of the post-office which you felt 
when no answer to all your letters came. I have 
regretted that visit to Greystoke, because this 
delay must have given you uneasiness. 

I have since heard from Captain Pplfold]. 
His letter contains the account of a meditated 

7 



Shelley's Letters 

proposal, on the part of my father and grand- 
father, to make my income immediately larger 
than the former's, in case I will consent to 
entail the estate on my eldest son, and, in 
default of issue, on my brother. Silly dotards ! 
do they think I can be thus bribed and ground 
into an act of such contemptible injustice and 
inutility ? that I will forswear my principles in 
consideration of ^2,000 a year? that the good- 
will I could thus purchase, or the ill-will I 
could thus overbear, would recompense me for 
the loss of self-esteem, of conscious rectitude ? 
And with what face can they make me a pro- 
posal so insultingly hateful ? Dare one of 
them propose such a condition to my face — - 
to the face of any virtuous man — and not 
sink into nothing at his disdain ? That I 
should entail ,£120,000 of command over 
labour, of power to remit this, to employ it 
for beneficent purposes, on one whom I know 
not — who might, instead of being the bene- 
factor of mankind, be its bane, or use this, for 
the worst purposes, which the real delegates of 
my chance-given property might convert into a 
most useful instrument of benevolence ! No ! 
this you will not suspect me of. p. b. s. 

8 



Shelley's Letters 



TO MISS HITCHENER 

Keswick [Thursday, 26 December, 181 1]. 
My dearest Friend : — I have delayed 
writing for two days that my letters might 
not succeed each other so closely as one day. 
I have also been much engaged in talking with 
Southey. You may conjecture that a man 
must possess high and estimable qualities if, 
with the prejudices of such total difference 
from my sentiments, I can regard him great 
and worthy. In fact, Southey is an advocate 
of liberty and equality. He looks forward to 
a state when all shall be perfected, and matter 
become subjected to the omnipotence of mind. 
But he is now an advocate for existing estab- 
lishments. He says he designs his three 
statues in Kehama to be contemplated with 
republican feelings, but not in this age. 
Southey hates the Irish : he speaks against 
Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Re- 
form. In all these things we differ, and our 
differences were the subject of a long conversa- 

9 



Shelley's Letters 

tion. Southey calls himself a Christian : ' but 
he does not believe that the Evangelists were 
inspired, he rejects the Trinity, and thinks 
that Jesus Christ stood precisely in the same 
relation to God as himself. Yet he calls him- 
self a Christian. Now, if ever there was a 
definition of a deist, I think it could never be 
clearer than this confession of faith. But 
Southey, though far from being a man of 
great reasoning powers, is a great man. He 
has all that characterizes the poet ; great elo- 
quence, though obstinacy in opinion, which 
arguments are the last things that can shake. 
He is a man of virtue. He will never belie 
what he thinks, his professions are in compati- 
bility with his practice. More of him another 
time. 

With Calvert, 2 the man whom I mentioned 

1 Shelley undoubtedly misinterpreted Southey's views ; it is 
nevertheless evident that Southey's subsequent statement that 
he avoided discussion with him upon religious subjects must be 
received with some qualification. For this statement, and for 
Southey's feelings toward Shelley in general, see the letters be- 
tween them published by Professor Dowden. — Correspondence 
of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles. 

2 Mr. Calvert, of Greta Bank, near Keswick. He was no 
doubt a relation of Raisley Calvert, Wordsworth's benefactor, 
and may have been the William Calvert in whose company 

IO 



Shelley's Letters 

to you in that pygmy letter, we have now be- 
come acquainted. He knows everything that 
relates to my family and to myself: my expul- 
sion from Oxford, the opinions that caused it, 
are no secrets to him. We first met Southey 
at his house. He has been very kind to us. 
The rent of our cottage was two guineas and a 
half a week with linen provided ; he has made 
the proprietor lower it to one guinea, and has 
lent us linen himself. p. b. s. 

VI. 

TO MISS HITCHENER 

Keswick [Thursday, 2 January, 181 2]. 

I have lately had some conversation with 
Southey which has elicited my true opinions 
of God. He says I ought not to call myself 
an atheist, since in reality I believe that the 
universe is God. I tell him that I believe 
that cc God " is another signification for " the 

Wordsworth visited the Isle of Wight in 1793. "The Duke [of 
Norfolk] and his friends were very fond of him ; he promoted all 
local improvements, and was a person of great vigour and origi- 
nality of mind." — Mr. P. H. Howard in " Shelley's Early Life" 
by D. F. MacCarthy,pp. 137, 138. 

II 



Shelley's Letters 

universe." I then explain : I think reason 
and analogy seem to countenance the opinion 
that life is infinite; that, as the soul which 
now animates this frame was once the vivify- 
ing principle of the infinitely lowest link in 
the chain of existence, so is it ultimately des- 
tined to attain to the highest ; that everything 
is animation (as explained in my last letter), 
and in consequence, being infinite, we can 
never arrive at its termination. How, on this 
hypothesis, are we to arrive at a First Cause ? 
— Southey admits and believes this. Can he 
be a Christian ? Can God be three ? Southey 
agrees in my idea of Deity — the mass of 
infinite intelligence. I, you, and he, are con- 
stituent parts of the immeasurable whole. What 
is now to be thought of Jesus Christ's divinity ? 

Southey is no believer in original sin ; he 
thinks that which appears to be a taint of our 
nature is in effect the result of unnatural politi- 
cal institutions. There we agree. He thinks 
the prejudices of education, and sinister influ- 
ences of political institutions adequate to 
account for all the specimens of vice which 
have fallen within his observation. 

12 



Shelley's Letters 

You talk of Montgomery. 1 We all sympa- 
thize with him, and often think and converse 
of him. I am going to write to him to-day. 
His story is a terrible one ; it is briefly this : 
His father and mother were Moravian mission- 
aries. They left this country to convert the 
Indians : they were young, enthusiastic, and 
excellent. The Indians savagely murdered 
them. Montgomery was then quite a child ; 
but the impression of the event never wore 
away. When he grew up he became a dis- 
believer of Christianity, having very much 
such principles as a virtuous inquirer for 
truth. In the meantime he loved an appar- 
ently amiable female ; he was about to marry 
her. Having some affairs in the West Indies, 
he went to settle them before his marriage. 
On his return to Sheffield, he actually met the 
marriage procession of this woman, who had in 
the meantime chosen another love. He be- 
came melancholy mad ; the horrible events of 
his life preyed upon his mind. He was 
shocked at having forsaken a faith for which 

1 The story here narrated seems to have no other foundation 
than the circumstance of Montgomery's parents, who were mis- 
sionaries, having died in the West Indies, within eight months of 
each other, of diseases incident to the climate. 

13 



Shelley's Letters 

a father and mother whom he loved had suf- 
fered martyrdom. The contest between his 
reason and his faith was destroying. He is 
now a Methodist. Will not this tale account 
for the melancholy and religious cast of his 
poetry ? This is what Southey told me, word 
for word. P. B. Shelley. 

Southey says I am not an atheist, but a 
pantheist. 



VII, 



TO THOMAS JEFFERSON HOGG 

Bishopsgate [Windsor Forest, September, 1 8 1 5]. 

My dear Friend : — Your letter has lain 

by me for the last week, reproaching me every 

day. I found it on my return from a water 

excursion on the Thames, 1 the particulars of 

1 The party on this expedition consisted of Shelley, Mrs. 
Shelley, Peacock, and Charles Clairmont, the second Mrs. God- 
win's son by a former marriage. " Our voyage," Peacock says, 
" terminated at a spot where the cattle stood entirely across the 
stream, with the water scarcely covering their hoofs." Accord- 
ing to Charles Clairmont, Shelley wished to take the boat 
through a canal into the Severn, and so into the heart of Wales, 
but the heavy lock charges effectually discouraged the project. 

14 



Shelley's Letters 

which will have been recounted in another 
letter. The exercise and dissipation of mind 
attached to such an expedition have produced 
so favourable an effect on my health/ that my 
habitual dejection and irritability have almost 
deserted me, and I can devote six hours in the 
day to study without difficulty. I have been 
engaged lately in the commencement of several 
literary plans, which, if my present temper of 
mind endures, I shall probably complete in 
the winter. I have consequently deserted 
Cicero, or proceed but slowly with his philo- 
sophic dialogues. I have read the oration for 
the poet Archias, and am only disappointed 
with its brevity. 

I have been induced by one of the subjects 
which I am now pursuing to consult Bayle. 
I think he betrays an obliquity of understand- 
ing and coarseness of feeling. I have also 
read the four first books of Lucan's " Phar- 
salia," 2 a poem, as it appears to me, of wonder- 
it bore fruit, however, in " Crotchet Castle," where such a navi- 
gation is an incident in the story. Shelley's " Lines in Lechlade 
Churchyard" were written on this occasion. 

1 This improvement is attributed by Peacock to the magic 
effect on the vegetarian of " three mutton chops, well peppered." 

2 Southey thought much the same : " The ill-chosen subjects 

15 



Shelley's Letters 

ful genius and transcending Virgil. Mary has 
finished the fifth book of the iEneid, and her 
progress in Latin is such as to satisfy my best 
expectations. 

The east wind — the wind of autumn — is 
abroad, and even now the leaves of the forest 
are shattered at every gust. When may we 
expect you ? September is almost passed and 
October, the month of your promised return, is 
at hand, when we shall be happy to welcome 
you again to our fireside. 

No events, as you know, disturb our tran- 
quillity. 

Adieu. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

Percy B. Shelley. 

of Lucan and Statius have prevented them from acquiring the 
popularity they would otherwise have merited, yet in detached 
parts the former is perhaps unequalled, certainly unexcelled. I 
do not scruple to prefer Statius to Virgil." — Preface to "Joan 
of Arc? 




Shelley's Letters 
VIII. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Geneva, 1 7 July, 1 8 1 6. 

My opinion of turning to one spot of earth 
and calling it our home, and of the excellen- 
cies and usefulness of the sentiments arising 
out of this attachment, has at length pro- 
duced in me the resolution of acquiring this 
possession. 

You are the only man who has sufficient 
regard for me to take an interest in the fulfil- 
ment of this design, and whose tastes conform 
sufficiently to mine to engage me to confide 
the execution of it to your discretion. 

I do not trouble you with apologies for 
giving you this commission. I require only 
rural exertions, walks, and circuitous wander- 
ings, some slight negotiations about the letting 
of a house, the superintendence of a disorderly 
garden, some palings to be mended, some 
books to be removed and set up. 

I wish you would get all my books and all 
my furniture from Bishopsgate, and all other 

17 



Shelley's Letters 

effects appertaining to me. I have written to 

to secure all that belongs to me there 

to you. I have written also to Longdill to 
give up possession of the house on the 3d 
of August. 

When you have possessed yourself of all 
my affairs, I wish you to look out for a home 
for me and Mary and William, and the kitten 
who is now en pension. I wish you to get an 
unfurnished house, with as good a garden as may 
be, near Windsor Forest, and take a lease of 
it for fourteen or twenty-one years. The house 
must not be too small. I wish the situation 
to resemble as nearly as possible that of Bish- 
opsgate, and should think that Sunning Hill 
or Winkfleld Plain, or the neighbourhood of 
Virginia Water, would afford some possibilities. 

My present intention is to return to Eng- 
land, and to make that most excellent of 
nations my perpetual resting-place. I think 
it is extremely probable that we shall return 
next spring, perhaps before, perhaps after, but 
certainly we shall return. 

On the motives and on the consequences of 
this journey, I reserve much explanation for 
some future winter walk or summer expedition. 

18 



Shelley's Letters 

This much alone is certain, that before we 
return we shall have seen, and felt and heard, 
a multiplicity of things which will haunt our 
talk and make us a little better worth knowing 
than we were before our departure. 

If possible, we think of descending the Dan- 
ube in a boat, of visiting Constantinople and 
Athens, then Rome and the Tuscan cities, and 
returning by the south of France, always fol- 
lowing great rivers, the Danube, the Po, the 
Rhone, and the Garonne : rivers are not like 
roads, the work of the hands of man ; they 
imitate mind, which wanders at will over path- 
less deserts, and flows through Nature's love- 
liest recesses, which are inaccessible to anything 
besides. They have the viler advantage also 
of affording a cheaper mode of conveyance. 

This Eastern scheme is one which has just 
seized on our imaginations. I fear that the 
detail of execution will destroy it, as all other 
wild and beautiful visions ; but at all events 
you will hear from us wherever we are, and to 
whatever adventures destiny enforces us. 

Tell me in return all English news. What 
has become of my poem ? I hope it has 
already sheltered itself in the bosom of its 

J 9 



Shelley's Letters 

mother, Oblivion, from whose embraces no 
one could have been so barbarous as to tear 
it except me. Tell me of the political state 
of England. Its literature, of which when I 
speak Coleridge is in my thoughts — yourself 
lastly, — your own employments, your histori- 
cal labours. 

I had written thus far when your letter to 
Mary, dated the 8th, arrived. What you say 
of Bishopsgate of course modifies that part of 
this letter which relates to it. I confess I did 
not learn the destined ruin without some pain, 
but it is well for me perhaps that a situation 
requiring so large an expense should be placed 
beyond our hopes. 

You must shelter my roofless Penates ; dedi- 
cate some new temple to them, and perform 
the functions of a priest in my absence. They 
are innocent deities, and their worship neither 
sanguinary nor absurd. Leave Mammon and 
Jehovah to those who delight in wickedness 
and slavery — their altars are stained with 
blood, or polluted with gold, the price of 
blood. But the shrines of the Penates are 
good wood fires, or window-frames intertwined 
with creeping plants ; their hymns are the purr- 

20 



Shelley's Letters 

ing of kittens, the hissing of kettles, the long 
talks over the past and dead, the laugh of 
children, the warm wind of summer filling the 
quiet house, and the pelting storm of winter 
struggling in vain for entrance. In talking of 
the Penates, will you not liken me to Julius 
Caesar dedicating a temple to Liberty ? 

As I have said in the former part of my 
letter, I trust entirely to your discretion on the 
subject of a house. Certainly the Forest en- 
gages my preference, because of the sylvan 
nature of the place, and the beasts with which 
it is filled. But I am not insensible to the 
beauties of the Thames, and any extraordinary 
eligibility of situation you mention in your let- 
ter would overbalance our habitual affection 
for the neighbourhood of Bishopsgate. Its 
proximity to the spot you have chosen is an 
argument with us in favour of the Thames. 
Recollect, however, we are now choosing a 
fixed, settled, eternal home, and as such its 
internal qualities will affect us more constantly 
than those which consist in the surrounding 
scenery, which, whatever it may be at first, will 
shortly be no more than the colours with which 
our own habits shall invest it. 

21 



Shelley's Letters 

I am glad that circumstances do not permit 
the choice to be my own. I shall abide by 
yours as others abide by the necessity of their 
birth. p. b. s. 



IX, 



TO WILLIAM GODWIN 

Marlow, n December, 1817. 
I have read and considered all that you say 
about my general powers, and the particular 
instance of the poem in which I have attempted 
to develop them. Nothing can be more sat- 
isfactory to me than the interest which your 
admonitions express. But I think you are 
mistaken in some points with regard to the 
peculiar nature of my powers, whatever be 
their amount. I listened with deference and 
self-suspicion to your censures of Laon and 
Cythna ; but the productions of mine which 
you commend hold a very low place in my 
own esteem, and this reassured me in some 
degree at least. The poem was produced by 
a series of thoughts which filled my mind with 
unbounded and sustained enthusiasm. I felt 
22 



Shelley's Letters 

the precariousness of my life, and I resolved 
in this book to leave some record of myself. 
Much of what the volume contains was written 
with the same feeling, as real, though not so 
prophetic, as the communications of a dying 
man. I never presumed, indeed, to consider 
it anything approaching to faultless ; but, when 
I considered contemporary productions of the 
same apparent pretensions, I will own that I 
was filled with confidence. I felt that in many 
respects it was a genuine picture of my now 
mind ; I felt that the sentiments were true, not 
assumed, and in this have I long believed, that 
my power consists in sympathy, and that part 
of imagination which relates to sentiment and 
contemplation. I am formed, if for anything 
not in common with the herd of mankind, to 
apprehend minute and remote distinctions of 
feeling, whether relative to external nature or 
the living beings which surround us, and to 
communicate the conceptions which result from 
considering either the moral or the material 
universe as a whole . . . Yet, after all, I can- 
not but be conscious, in much of what I write, 
of an absence of that tranquillity which is the 
attribute and accompaniment of power. This 
23 



Shelley's Letters 

feeling alone would make your most kind and 
wise admonitions on the subject of the economy 
of intellectual force valuable to me : and if I 
live, or if I see any trust in coming years, doubt 
not but that I shall do something, whatever it 
may be, which a serious and earnest estimate 
of my powers will suggest to me, and which 
will be in every respect accommodated to their 
utmost limits. 



X. 



TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Milan, 20 April, 181 8. 
My dear Peacock : — I had no concep- 
tion that the distance between us, measured 
by time in respect of letters, was so great. I 
have but just received yours dated the 2d, and 
when you will receive mine written from this 
city, somewhat later than the same date, I can- 
not know. I am sorry to hear that you have 
been obliged to remain at Marlow ; a certain 
degree of society being almost a necessity of 
life, particularly as we are not to see you this 
summer in Italy. But this, I suppose, must 
be as it is. I often revisit Marlow in thought. 

24 



Shelley's Letters 

The curse of this life is that whatever is once 
known can never be unknown. You inhabit a 
spot, which before you inhabit it is as indiffer- 
ent to you as any other spot upon earth, and 
when, persuaded by some necessity, you think 
to leave it, you leave it not ; it clings to you, 
and with memories of things, which in your 
experience of them gave no such promise, re- 
venges your desertion. Time flows on, places 
are changed ; friends who were with us are no 
longer with us ; yet what has been seems yet 
to be, but barren and stripped of life. See, I 
have sent you a study for " Nightmare Abbey." 
Since I last wrote to you we have been to 
Como, looking for a house. This lake exceeds 
anything I ever beheld in beauty, with the ex- 
ception of the Arbutus Islands in Killarney. 
It is long and narrow, and has the appearance 
of a mighty river winding among the moun- 
tains and forests. We sailed from the town 
of Como to a tract of country called the 
Tremezina, and saw the various aspects pre- 
sented by that part of the lake. The moun- 
tains between Como and that village, or rather 
cluster of villages, are covered on high with 
chestnut forests, the eating chestnuts on which 

25 



Shelley's Letters 

the inhabitants of the country subsist in time 
of scarcity, which sometimes descend to the 
very verge of the lake, overhanging it with 
their hoary branches. But usually the im- 
mediate border of this shore is composed of 
laurel-trees, and bay, and myrtle, and wild fig- 
trees, and olives, which grow in the crevices of 
the rocks, and overhang the caverns, and shadow 
the deep glens, which are filled with the flashing 
light of the waterfalls. Other flowering shrubs, 
which I cannot name, grow there also. On 
high, the towers of village churches are seen 
white among the dark forests. Beyond, on 
the opposite shore, which faces the south, the 
mountains descend less precipitously to the 
lake, and although they are much higher, and 
some covered with perpetual snow, there inter- 
venes between them and the lake a range of 
lower hills, which have glens and rifts opening 
to the other, such as I should fancy the abysses 
of Ida or Parnassus. Here are plantations of 
olive, and orange, and lemon trees, which are 
now so loaded with fruit that there is more 
fruit than leaves ; and vineyards. This shore 
of the lake is one continued village, and the 
Milanese nobility have their villas here. The 
26 



Shelley's Letters 

union of culture and the untamable profusion 
and loveliness of nature is here so close that 
the line where they are divided can hardly be 
discovered. But the finest scenery is that of 
the Villa Pliniana, so called from a fountain 
which ebbs and flows every three hours, de- 
scribed by the younger Pliny, which is in the 
courtyard. This house, which was once a 
magnificent palace, and is now half in ruins, 
we are endeavouring to procure. It is built 
upon terraces raised from the bottom of the 
lake, together with its garden, at the foot of a 
semicircular precipice, overshadowed by pro- 
found forests of chestnut. The scene from 
the colonnade is the most extraordinary, at 
once, and the most lovely that eye ever be- 
held. On one side is the mountain, and im- 
mediately over you are clusters of cypress-trees 
of an astonishing height, which seem to pierce 
the sky. Above you, from among the clouds, 
as it were, descends a waterfall of immense 
size, broken by the woody rocks into a thou- 
sand channels to the lake. On the other side 
is seen the blue extent of the lake and the 
mountains, speckled with sails and spires. 
The apartments of the Pliniana are immensely 

27 



Shelley's Letters 

large, but ill furnished and antique. The ter- 
races, which overlook the lake, and conduct 
under the shade of such immense laurel-trees 
as deserve the epithet of Pythian, are most de- 
lightful. We stayed at Como two days, and 
have now returned to Milan, waiting the issue 
of our negotiation about a house. Como is 
only six leagues from Milan, and its moun- 
tains are seen from the cathedral. 

This cathedral is a most astonishing work 
of art. It is built of white marble, and cut 
into pinnacles of immense height and the 
utmost delicacy of workmanship, and loaded 
with sculpture. The effect of it, piercing the 
solid blue with those groups of dazzling spires, 
relieved by the serene depth of this Italian 
heaven, or by moonlight when the stars seem 
gathered among those clustered shapes, is 
beyond anything I had imagined architecture 
capable of producing. The interior, though 
very sublime, is of a more earthly character, 
and with its stained glass and massy granite 
columns overloaded with antique figures, and 
the silver lamps that burn for ever under the 
canopy of black cloth beside the brazen altar 
and the marble fretwork of the dome, give it 

28 



Shelley's Letters 

the aspect of some gorgeous sepulchre. There 
is one solitary spot among those aisles, behind 
the altar, where the light of day is dim and 
yellow under the storied window, which I have 
chosen to visit, and read Dante there. 

I have devoted this summer, and indeed the 
next year, to the composition of a tragedy on 
the subject of Tasso's madness, 1 which I find 
upon inspection is, if properly treated, admi- 
rably dramatic and poetical. But, you will say, 
I have no dramatic talent; very true, in a 
certain sense ; but I have taken the resolution 
to see what kind of a tragedy a person without 
dramatic talent could write. It shall be better 
morality than Fazio, and better poetry than 
Bertram, at least. You tell me nothing of 
" Rhododaphne," 2 a book from which, I con- 
fess, I expected extraordinary success. 

p. b. s. 

1 One scene and one song for this projected drama have been 
printed in Shelley's works. The following notes for intended 
scenes have not hitherto been published : " Scene where he reads 
the sonnet which he wrote to Leonora to herself as composed at 
the request of another. — His disguising himself in the habit of 
a shepherd, and questioning his sister in that disguise concerning 
himself, and then unveiling himself." 

2 " Rhododaphne ; or, The Thessalian Spell," was a poem by 
Peacock of very considerable merit, of which Shelley wrote a 

29 



Shelley's Letters 
XI. 

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE 

Leghorn, Bagni di Lucca, 
i o July, 1818. 

You cannot know, as some friends in Eng- 
land do, to whom my silence is still more 
inexcusable, that this silence is no proof of 
forgetfulness or neglect. 

I have, in truth, nothing to say, but that I 
shall be happy to see you again, and renew 
our delightful walks, until the desire or the 
duty of seeing new things hurries us away. 
We have spent a month here in our accustomed 
solitude, with the exception of one night at 
the Casino, and the choice society of all ages, 
which I took care to pack up in a large trunk 
before we left England, have revisited us here. 
I am employed just now, having little better 
to do, in translating into my faint and ineffi- 
cient periods, the divine eloquence of Plato's 

review, apparently intended for the Examiner, but not then pub- 
lished. It has been printed by Mr. Forman, who points out that 
Edgar Poe also thought highly of " Rhododaphne." 

30 



Shelley's Letters 

Symposium ; only as an exercise, or, perhaps, 
to give Mary some idea of the manners and 
feelings of the Athenians — so different on 
many subjects from that of any other com- 
munity that ever existed. 

We have almost finished Ariosto — who is 
entertaining and graceful, and sometimes a poet. 
Forgive me, worshippers of a more equal and 
tolerant divinity in poetry, if Ariosto pleases 
me less than you. Where is the gentle serious- 
ness, the delicate sensibility, the calm and 
sustained energy, without which true greatness 
cannot be ? He is so cruel, too, in his descrip- 
tions ; his most prized virtues are vices almost 
without disguise. He constantly vindicates and 
embellishes revenge in its grossest form ; the 
most deadly superstition that ever infested the 
world. How different from the tender and 
solemn enthusiasm of Petrarch — or even the 
delicate moral sensibility of Tasso, though 
somewhat obscured by an assumed and arti- 
ficial style ! 

We read a good deal here — and we read 

little in Livorno. We have ridden, Mary and 

I, once only, to a place called Prato Fiorito, 

on the top of the mountains ; the road, wind- 

31 



Shelley's Letters 

ing through forests and over torrents, and on 
the verge of green ravines, affords scenery 
magnificently fine. I cannot describe it to you, 
but bid you, though vainly, come and see. I 
take great delight in watching the changes of 
the atmosphere here, and the growth of the 
thunder-showers with which the noon is often 
overshadowed, and which break and fade away 
toward evening into flocks of delicate clouds. 
Our fireflies are fading fast away ; but there 
is the planet Jupiter, who rises majestically 
over the rift in the forest-covered mountains 
to the south, and the pale summer lightning 
which is spread out every night, at intervals, 
over the sky. . . . 

With the sentiment of impatience until we 
see you again in the autumn, 

I am yours most sincerely, 

P. B. Shelley. 




32 



Shelley's Letters 
XII. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Bagni di Lucca, 25 July, 181 8. 

My dear Peacock : — I received on the 
same day your letters marked five and six, 
the one directed to Pisa, and the other to Li- 
vorno, and I can assure you they are most 
welcome visitors. 

Our life here is as unvaried by any external 
events as if we were at Marlow, where a sail up 
the river or a journey to London makes an 
epoch. Since I last wrote to you, I have 
ridden over to Lucca, once with Claire, and 
once alone ; and we have been over to the 
Casino, where I cannot say there is anything 
remarkable, the women being far removed from 
anything which the most liberal annotator 
could interpret into beauty or grace, and appar- 
ently possessing no intellectual excellencies to 
compensate the deficiency. I assure you it is 
well that it is so, for these dances, especially 
the waltz, are so exquisitely beautiful that it 
would be a little dangerous to the newly un- 

33 



Shelley's Letters 

frozen senses and imaginations of us migrators 
from the neighbourhood of the Pole. As it 
is — except in the dark — there could be no 
peril. 

The atmosphere here, unlike that of the 
rest of Italy, is diversified with clouds, which 
grow in the middle of the day, and sometimes 
bring thunder and lightning, and hail about the 
size of a pigeon's egg, and decrease toward 
the evening, leaving only those finely woven 
webs of vapour which we see in English skies, 
and flocks of fleecy and slowly moving clouds, 
which all vanish before sunset ; and the nights 
are for ever serene, and we see a star in the east 
at sunset — I think it is Jupiter — almost as 
fine as Venus was last summer ; but it wants a 
certain silver and aerial radiance, and soft yet 
piercing splendour, which belongs, I suppose, 
to the latter planet by virtue of its at once 
divine and female nature. I have forgotten to 
ask the ladies if Jupiter produces on them the 
same effect. I take great delight in watching 
the changes of the atmosphere. In the eve- 
ning Mary and I often take a ride, for horses 
are cheap in this country. In the middle of 
the day, I bathe in a pool or fountain, formed 
34 



Shelley's Letters 

in the middle of the forests by a torrent. It 
is surrounded on all sides by precipitous rocks, 
and the waterfall of the stream which forms it 
falls into it on one side with perpetual dashing. 
Close to it, on the top of the rocks, are alders, 
and, above, the great chestnut-trees, whose 
long and pointed leaves pierce the deep blue 
sky in strong relief. The water of this pool, 
which, to venture an unrhythmical paraphrase, 1 
is " sixteen feet long and ten feet wide," is as 
transparent as the air, so that the stones and 
sand at the bottom seem, as it were, trembling 
in the light of noonday. It is exceedingly 
cold also. My custom is to undress and sit 
on the rocks, reading Herodotus, until the 
perspiration has subsided, and then to leap 
from the edge of the rock into this fountain ■ — 
a practice in the hot weather exceedingly re- 
freshing. This torrent is composed, as it were, 
of a succession of pools and waterfalls, up which 
I sometimes amuse myself by climbing when 
I bathe, and receiving the spray over all my 
body, whilst I clamber up the moist crags with 
difficulty. 

1 " The reference is to the third stanza of Wordsworth's 
beautiful poem, ' The Thorn,' as printed in the editions current 
in Shelley's time." — Forman. 

35 



Shelley's Letters 

I have lately found myself totally incapable 
of original composition. I have employed my 
mornings, therefore, in translating the Sympo- 
sium, which I accomplished in ten days. Mary 
is now transcribing it, and I am writing a prefa- 
tory essay. I have been reading scarcely any- 
thing but Greek, and a little Italian poetry 
with Mary. We have finished Ariosto to- 
gether — a thing I could not have done again 
alone. 

" Frankenstein " seems to have been well 
received, for although the unfriendly criticism 
of the Quarterly is an evil for it, yet it proves 
that it is read in some considerable degree, and 
it would be difficult for them, with any appear- 
ance of fairness, to deny it merit altogether. 
Their notice of me, and their exposure of their 
true motives for not noticing my book, show 
how well understood an hostility must subsist 
between me and them. 

The news of the result of the elections, espe- 
cially that of the metropolis, is highly inspirit- 
ing. I received a letter, of two days later date, 
with yours, which announced the unfortunate 
termination of that of Westmoreland. I wish 
you had sent me some of the overflowing vil- 
36 



Shelley's Letters 

lainy of those apostates. What a pitiful wretch 
that Wordsworth : that such a man should be 
such a poet ! I can compare him with no one 
but Simonides, that flatterer of the Sicilian ty- 
rants, and at the same time the most natural 
and tender of lyric poets. 

What pleasure would it have given me if 
the wings of imagination could have divided 
the space which divides us, and I could have 
been of your party ! I have seen nothing so 
beautiful as Virginia Water in its kind, and 
my thoughts for ever cling to Windsor Forest, 
and the copses of Marlow, like the clouds 
which hang upon the woods of the mountains, 
low trailing, and though they pass away, leave 
their best dew when they themselves have 
faded. 

XIII. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Bagni di Lucca, 1 6 August, 1 8 1 8. 

My dear Peacock : — No new event has 

been added to my life since I wrote last, at 

least none which might not have taken place 

as well on the banks of the Thames as on 

37 



Shelley's Letters 

those of the Serchio. I project soon a short 
excursion, of a week or so, to some of the 
neighbouring cities, and on the ioth of Septem- 
ber we leave this place for Florence, when I 
shall at least be able to tell you of some things 
which you cannot see from your windows. 

I have finished, by taking advantage of a 
few days of inspiration — which the Camoenae 
have been lately very backward in conceding 
— the little poem * I began sending to the 
press in London. Oilier will send you the 
proofs. Its structure's slight and aery; its 
subject ideal. The metre corresponds with 
the spirit of the poem, and varies with the flow 
of the feeling. I have translated, and Mary 
has transcribed, the Symposium, as well as my 
poem, and I am proceeding to employ myself 
on a discourse upon the subject of which the 
Symposium treats, considering the subject with 
reference to the difference of sentiments re- 
specting it existing between the Greeks and 
modern nations, a subject to be handled with 
that delicate caution which either I cannot or 
I will not practise in other matters, but which 
here I acknowledge to be necessary. Not that 

1 « Rosalind and Helen." 
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Shelley's Letters 

I have any serious thought of publishing either 
this discourse or the Symposium — at least till 
I return to England — when we may discuss 
the propriety of it. 

" Nightmare Abbey " finished ! Well, what 
is in it ? What is it ? You are as secret as 
if the priest of Ceres had dictated its sacred 
pages. However, I suppose I shall see in 
time, when my second parcel arrives. My 
first is yet absent. By what conveyance did 
you send it ? 

Pray, are you yet cured of your nympho- 
lepsy ? 'Tis a sweet disease, but one as obsti- 
nate and dangerous as any, even when the 
nymph is a Poliad. 1 Whether such should be 
the case or not, I hope your nympholeptic tale 
is not abandoned. The subject, if treated with 
a due spice of bacchic fury, and interwoven 
with the manners and feelings of those divine 
people, who, in their very errors, are the mir- 
rors, as it were, in which all that is delicate and 
graceful contemplates itself, is perhaps equal 
to any. What a wonderful passage there is in 

x Peacock says : " I suppose I understood this at the time, 
but I have not now the most distant recollection of what it 
alludes to." 

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Shelley's Letters 

Phaedrus " — the beginning, I think, of one of 
the speeches of Socrates — in praise of poetic 
madness, and in definition of what poetry is, 
and how a man becomes a poet ! Every man 
who lives in this age and desires to write 
poetry, ought, as a preservative against the 
false and narrow systems of criticism which 
every poetical empiric vents, to impress him- 
self with this sentence, if he would be numbered 
among those to whom may apply this proud, 
though sublime, expression of Tasso : " Non 
c e in mondo chi merita nome di Creatore, che 
Dio ed il poeta." 

The weather has been brilliantly fine, and 
now, among these mountains, the autumnal air 
is becoming less hot, especially in the mornings 
and evenings. The chestnut woods are now 
inexpressibly beautiful, for the chestnuts have 

1 Thus rendered by Peacock : " There are several kinds of 
divine madness. That which proceeds from the Muses' taking 
possession of a tender and unoccupied soul, awakening and bac- 
chically inspiring it toward songs and other poetry, adorning 
myriads of ancient deeds, instructs succeeding generations ; but 
he who without this madness from the Muses approaches the 
poetical gates, having persuaded himself that by art alone he 
may become sufficiently a poet, will find in the end his own im- 
perfection, and see the poetry of his cold prudence vanish into 
nothingness before the light of that which has sprung from 
divine insanity." 

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become large, and add a new richness to the 
full foliage. We see here Jupiter in the east, 
and Venus, I believe, as the evening star, 
directly after sunset. 

More and better in my next. Mary and 
Claire desire their kind remembrances. 
Most faithfully your friend, 

P. B. Shelley. 



XIV. 

TO MRS. SHELLEY 

Bagni di Lucca, Florence. 
Thursday, n o'clock [20 August, 181 8], 

Dearest Mary : — We have been delayed 
in this city four hours for the Austrian min- 
ister's passport, but are now on the point of 
setting out with a vetturino, who engages to 
take us on the third day to Padua, that is, we 
shall only sleep three nights on the road. 
Yesterday's journey, performed in a one-horse 
cabriolet, almost without springs, over a rough 
road, was excessively fatiguing. Claire suffered 
most from it, for, as to myself, there are occa- 
sions in which fatigue seems a useful medicine, 

41 



Shelley's Letters 

as I have felt no pain in my side — a most 
delightful respite — since I left you. The 
country was various and exceedingly beautiful. 
Sometimes there were those low cultivated 
lands, with their vine festoons, and large 
bunches of grapes just becoming purple, at 
others we passed between high mountains, 
crowned with some of the most majestic Gothic 
ruins I ever saw, which frowned from the bare 
precipices, or were half seen among the olive 
copses. As we approached Florence, the coun- 
try became cultivated to a very high degree; 
the plain was filled with the most beautiful 
villas, and as far as the eye could reach the 
mountains were covered with them, for the 
plains are bounded on all sides by blue and 
misty mountains. The vines are here trailed 
on low trellises of reeds interwoven into crosses 
to support them, and the grapes, now almost 
ripe, are exceedingly abundant. You every- 
where meet those teams of beautiful white 
oxen, which are now labouring the little vine- 
divided fields with their Virgilian ploughs and 
carts. Florence itself, that is the Lung' Arno, 
for I have seen no more, I think is the most 
beautiful city I have yet seen. It is surrounded 

42 



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with cultivated hills, and from the bridge which 
crosses the broad channel of the Arno the 
view is the most animated and elegant I ever 
saw. You see three or four bridges apparently- 
supported by Corinthian pillars, and the white 
sails of the boats, relieved by the deep green 
of the forest, which comes to the water's edge, 
and the sloping hills covered with bright villas 
on every side. Domes and steeples rise on all 
sides, and the cleanliness is remarkably great. 
On the other side there are the foldings of the 
vale of Arno above, first the hills of olive and 
vine, then the chestnut woods, and then the 
blue and misty pine forests, which invest the 
aerial Apennines, that fade in the distance. I 
have seldom seen a city so lovely at first sight 
as Florence. 

We shall travel hence within a few hours, 
with the speed of the post, since the distance 
is 190 miles, and we are to do it in three days, 
besides the half-day, which is somewhat more 
than sixty miles a day. We have now got a 
comfortable carriage and two mules, and, thanks 
to Paola, have made a very decent bargain, 
comprising everything, to Padua. I should 
say we had delightful fruit for breakfast — figs, 
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Shelley's Letters 

very fine, and peaches, unfortunately gathered 
before they were ripe, whose smell was like 
what one fancies of the wakening of paradise 
flowers. 

Well, my dearest Mary, are you very lonely ? 
Tell me truth, my sweetest, do you ever cry ? 
I shall hear from you once at Venice, and 
once on my return here. If you love me, you 
will keep up your spirits, and, at all events, tell 
me the truth about it, for, I assure you, I am 
not of a disposition to be flattered by your 
sorrow, though I should be by your cheerful- 
ness, and, above all, by seeing such fruits of 
my absence ' as were produced when we were at 
Geneva. What acquaintances have you made ? 
I might have travelled to Padua with a Ger- 
man, who had just come from Rome, and had 
scarce recovered from a malarial fever, caught 
in the Pontine Marshes a week or two since ; 
and I conceded to Claire's entreaties, and to 
your absent suggestions, and omitted the op- 
portunity, although I have no great faith in 
such species of contagion. It is not very hot, 
not at all too much so for my sensations, and 
the only thing that incommodes me are the 

1 " Frankenstein." 
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Shelley's Letters 

gnats at night, who roar like so many hum- 
ming tops in one's ear, and I do not always 
find zanzariere. How is Willmouse and little 
Clara ? They must be kissed for me, and you 
must particularly remember to speak my name 
to William, and see that he does not quite for- 
get me before I return. Adieu, my dearest 
girl, I think that we shall soon meet. I shall 
write again from Venice. Adieu, dear Mary ! 
I have been reading the " Noble Kinsmen," 
in which, with the exception of that lovely 
scene to which you added so much grace in 
reading to me, I have been disappointed. The 
jailer's daughter is a poor imitation, and de- 
formed. The whole story wants moral dis- 
crimination and modesty. I do not believe 
Shakespeare wrote a word of it. 

XV. 

TO MRS. SHELLEY 

Bagni di Lucca, Venice. 
Sunday morning [23 August, 181 8]. 

My dearest Mary : — We arrived here 
last night at twelve o'clock, and it is now 

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Shelley's Letters 

before breakfast the next morning. I can, of 
course, tel] you nothing of the future, and 
though I shall not close this letter till post 
time, yet I do not know exactly when that is. 
Yet, if you are very impatient, look along the 
letter and you will see another date, when I 
may have something to relate. . . . 

We came from Padua hither in a gondola, 
and the gondoliere, among other things, with- 
out any hint on my part, began talking of 
Lord Byron. He said he was a giovinetto In- 
glese, with a nome stravagante, who lived very 
luxuriously, and spent great sums of money. 
This man, it seems, was one of Lord Byron's 
gondolieri. No sooner had we arrived at the 
inn than the waiter began talking about him 
— said that he frequented Mrs. Hoppner's 
conversazioni very much. 

Our journey from Florence to Padua con- 
tained nothing which may not be related an- 
other time. At Padua, as I said, we took a 
gondola, and left it at three o'clock. These 
gondolas are the most convenient and beauti- 
ful boats in the world. They are finely car- 
peted and furnished with black and painted 
black. The couches upon which you lean are 

46 



Shelley's Letters 

extraordinarily soft, and are so disposed as to be 
the most comfortable to those who lean or sit. 
The windows have at will either Venetian plate- 
glass flowered, or Venetian blinds, or blinds of 
black cloth to shut out the light. The weather 
here is extremely cold ; indeed, sometimes very 
painfully so, and yesterday it began to rain. 
We passed the Laguna in the middle of the 
night in a most violent storm of wind, rain, and 
lightning. It was very curious to observe the 
elements above in a state of such tremendous 
convulsions, and the surface of the water almost 
calm ; for these lagunas, though five miles 
broad — a space enough in a storm to sink any 
gondola — are so shallow that the boatmen 
drive the boat along with a pole. The sea- 
water, furiously agitated by the wind, shone 
with sparkles like stars. Venice, now hidden 
and now disclosed by the driving rain, shone 
dimly with its lights. We were all this while 
safe and comfortable, except that Claire was 
now and then a little frightened in our cabin. 
Well, adieu, dearest : I shall, as Miss Byron 
says, resume the pen in the evening. . . . 

At three o'clock I called on Lord Byron ; 
he was delighted to see me, and our first con- 

47 



Shelley's Letters 

versation of course consisted in the object of 
my visit. . . . 

Well, my dear Mary, this talk went off, for 
I did not see in that moment how I could urge 
it further, and I thought that at least many 
points were gained in the willingness and good 
humour of our discussion. So he took me in 
his gondola — much against my will, for I 
wanted to return to Claire at the Hoppners* 
— across the Laguna to a long sandy island, 
which defends Venice from the Adriatic. 
When we disembarked, we found his horses 
waiting for us, and we rode along the sands of 
the sea talking. Our conversation consisted 
in the history of his wounded feelings, and 
questions as to my affairs, and great profes- 
sions of friendship and regard for me. He 
said that if he had been in England at the 
time of the chancery affair, he would have 
moved heaven and earth to have prevented 
such a decision. We talked of literary mat- 
ters — his fourth Canto, which he says is very 
good, and, indeed, repeated some stanzas of 
great energy to me — when we returned to his 
palace. . . . 

Do you know, dearest, how this letter was 
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Shelley's Letters 

written ? By scraps and patches, and inter- 
rupted every minute. The gondola is now 
come to take us up to Fusina. Este is a little 
place, and the house found without difficulty. 
I shall count four days for this letter : one day 
for packing, four for coming here, and on the 
ninth or tenth day we shall meet. 

I am too late for the post, but I send an ex- 
press to overtake it. Enclosed is an order for 
£50. If you knew all that I had to do ! 

Dearest love, be well, be happy ; come to 
me, and confide in your own constant and 
affectionate p. b. s. 

Kiss the blue-eyed darlings for me, and 
don't let William forget me. Clara cannot 
recollect me. 

XVI. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Este [8 October, 181 8]. 

My dear Peacock : — I have not written 

to you, I think, for six weeks, but I have 

often felt that I had many things to say ; but 

I have not been without events to disturb and 

49 



Shelley's Letters 

distract me, amongst which is the death of my 
little girl. She died of a disorder peculiar to 
the climate. We have all had bad spirits 
enough, and I, in addition, bad health. I 
intend to be better soon ; there is no malady, 
bodily or mental, which does not either kill or 
is killed. 

We left the baths of Lucca, I think, the day 
after I wrote to you, on a visit to Venice, partly 
for the sake of seeing the city. We made a 
very delightful acquaintance there with a Mr. 
and Mrs. Hoppner, the gentleman an English- 
man, and the lady a Swissesse, mild and beau- 
tiful, and unprejudiced, in the best sense of the 
word. The kind attentions of these people 
made our short stay at Venice very pleasant. 
I saw Lord Byron, and really hardly knew him 
again : he is changed into the liveliest and hap- 
piest-looking man I ever met. He read me 
the first canto of his " Don Juan," a thing 
in the style of " Beppo," but infinitely better, 
and dedicated to Southey in ten or a dozen 
stanzas, more like a mixture of wormwood and 
verdigris than satire. Venice is a wonderfully 
fine city. The approach to it over the Laguna, 
with its domes and turrets glittering in a long 

50 



Shelley's Letters 

line over the blue waves, is one of the finest 
architectural delusions in the world. It seems 
to have, and literally it has, its foundations in 
the sea. The silent streets are paved with 
water, and you hear nothing but the dashing 
of the oars, and the occasional cries of the 
gondolieri. I heard nothing of Tasso. The 
gondolas themselves are things of a most 
romantic and picturesque appearance ; I can 
only compare them to moths, of which a coffin 
might have been the chrysalis. They are hung 
with black, and painted black, and carpeted with 
gray ; they curl at the prow and stern, and at the 
former there is a nondescript beak of shining 
steel, which glitters at the end of its long black 
mass. 

The Doge's palace, with its library, is a fine 
monument of aristocratic power. I saw the 
dungeons, where these scoundrels used to tor- 
ment their victims. They are of three kinds, 
one adjoining the place of trial, where the 
prisoners destined to immediate execution 
were kept. I could not descend to them, 
because the day on which I visited it was 
festa. Another under the leads of the palace, 
where the sufferers were roasted to death or 

S 1 



Shelley's Letters 

madness by the ardours of an Italian sun ; 
and others, called the Pozzi — or wells, deep 
underneath, and communicating with those on 
the roof by secret passages — where the pris- 
oners were confined sometimes half up to their 
middles in stinking water. When the French 
came here they found only one old man in the 
dungeons, and he could not speak. But Venice, 
which was once a tyrant, is now the next worse 
thing, a slave ; for, in fact, it ceased to be free, 
or worth our regret as a nation, from the mo- 
ment that the oligarchy usurped the rights of 
the people ; yet, I do not imagine that it was 
ever so degraded as it has been since the 
French, and especially the Austrian yoke. 
The Austrians take sixty per cent, in taxes, 
and impose free quarters on the inhabitants. 
A horde of German soldiers, as vicious and 
more disgusting than the Venetians them- 
selves, insult these miserable people. I had 
no conception of the excess to which avarice, 
cowardice, superstition, ignorance, passionless 
lust, and all the inexpressible brutalities which 
degrade human nature, could be carried, until 
I had passed a few days at Venice. 

We have been living this last month near 
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Shelley's Letters 

the little town from which I date this letter, in a 
very pleasant villa which has been lent to us, 
and we are now on the point of proceeding 
to Florence, Rome, and Naples, at which last 
city we shall spend the winter and return 
northwards in the spring. Behind us here are 
the Euganean Hills, not so beautiful as those 
of the Bagni di Lucca, with Arqua, where 
Petrarch's house and tomb are religiously pre- 
served and visited. At the end of our garden 
is an extensive Gothic castle, now the habitation 
of owls and bats, where the Medici family 
resided before they came to Florence. We 
see before us the wide flat plains of Lombardy, 
in which we see the sun and moon rise and 
set, and the evening star, and all the golden 
magnificence of autumnal clouds. But I reserve 
wonder for Naples. 

I have been writing, and indeed have just 
finished the first act of, a lyric and classical 
drama, to be called " Prometheus Unbound." 
Will you tell me what there is in Cicero about 
a drama supposed to have been written by 
iEschylus under this title ? 

I ought to say that I have just read Malthus 
in a French translation. Malthus is a very 

53 



Shelley's Letters 

clever man, and the world would be a great 
gainer if it would seriously take his lessons 
into consideration, if it were capable of attend- 
ing seriously to anything but mischief — but 
what on earth does he mean by some of his 
inferences ! 

Yours ever faithfully, 

P. B. S. 

XVII. . 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Ferrara, 8 November, 1818. 

My dear Peacock : — We left Este yes- 
terday on our journey toward Naples. The 
roads were particularly bad ; we have, therefore, 
accomplished only two days' journey, of eight- 
een and twenty-four miles each, and you may 
imagine that our horses must be tolerably good 
ones, to drag our carriage, with five people and 
heavy luggage, through deep and clayey roads. 
The roads are, however, good during the rest 
of the way. 

The country is flat, but intersected by lines 
of wood, trellised with vines, whose broad 
leaves are now stamped with the redness of 

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Shelley's Letters 

their decay. Every here and there one sees 
people employed in agricultural labours, and 
the plough, the harrow, or the cart, drawn by 
long teams of milk-white or dove-coloured oxen 
of immense size and exquisite beauty. This, 
indeed, might be the country of Pasiphaes. 
In one farmyard I was shown sixty-three of 
these lovely oxen, tied to their stalls, in excel- 
lent condition. A farmyard in this part of 
Italy is somewhat different from one in Eng- 
land. First, the house, which is large and 
high, with strange-looking unpainted window- 
shutters, generally closed, and dreary beyond 
conception. The farmyard and outbuildings, 
however, are usually in the neatest order. 
The threshing-floor is not under cover, but 
like that described in the " Georgics," usually 
flattened by a broken column, 1 and neither the 
mole, nor the toad, nor the ant, 2 can find on 

1 " Area cum primis ingenti sequanda cylindro." — Virg., 
Georg. I., 178. " Pro cylindro rotundum lapidem vel columnce 
fragmentum memorat Palladius." Heyne's note on the passage 
— an interesting proof of the late period of Palladius, and of the 
condition of Italy in his time. 

2 " Turn variae inludunt pestes ; saepe exiguus mus 
Sub terris posuitque domos atque horrea fecit ; 
Aut oculis capti fodere cubilia talpae, 
Inventusque cavis bufo, et quae plurima terras. 

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Shelley's Letters 

its area a crevice for their dwelling. Around 
it, at this season, are piled the stacks of the 
leaves and stalks of Indian corn, which has 
lately been threshed and dried upon its surface. 
At a little distance are vast heaps of many- 
coloured zucche or pumpkins, some of enor- 
mous size, piled as winter food for the hogs. 
There are turkeys, too, and fowls wandering 
about, and two or three dogs, who bark with 
a sharp hylactism. The people who are occu- 
pied with the care of these things seem neither 
ill-clothed nor ill-fed, and the blunt incivility of 
their manners has an English air with it, very 
discouraging to those who are accustomed to the 
impudent and polished lying of the inhabitants 
of the cities. I should judge the agricultural re- 
sources of this country to be immense, since it 
can wear so flourishing an appearance, in spite 
of the enormous discouragements which the 
various tyranny of the governments inflicts on 
it. I ought to say that one of the farms be- 
longs to a Jew banker at Venice — another Shy- 
lock. We arrived late at the inn where I now 

Monstra ferunt, populatque ingentem farris acervum 
Curculio, atque inopi metuens formica senectae." 

— Virg., Georg. I., 181-183. 

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Shelley's Letters 

write ; it was once the palace of a Venetian 
nobleman, and is now an excellent inn. To- 
morrow we are going to see the sights of 
Ferrara. 

9 November. 

We have had heavy rain and thunder all 
night, and the former still continuing, we went 
in the carriage about the town. We went first 
to look at the cathedral, but the beggars very 
soon made us sound a retreat; so, whether, 
as it is said, there is a copy of a picture of 
Michael Angelo there or no, I cannot tell. 
At the public library we were more successful. 
This is, indeed, a magnificent establishment, 
containing, as they say, 1 60,000 volumes. We 
saw some illuminated manuscripts of church 
music, with the verses of the Psalms interlined 
between the square notes, each of which con- 
sisted of the most delicate tracery, in colours 
inconceivably vivid. They belonged to the 
neighbouring convent of Certosa, and are three 
or four hundred years old, but their hues are 
as fresh as if they had been executed yesterday. 
The tomb of Ariosto occupies one end of the 
largest saloon of which the library is composed ; 
it is formed of various marbles, surmounted 

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Shelley's Letters 

by an expressive bust of the poet, and sub- 
scribed with a few Latin verses, in a less miser- 
able taste than those usually employed for 
similar purposes. But the most interesting 
exhibitions here are the writings, etc., of Ariosto 
and Tasso, which are preserved, and were con- 
cealed from the undistinguishing depredations 
of the French with pious care. There is the 
armchair of Ariosto, an old plain wooden 
piece of furniture, the hard seat of which was 
once occupied by — but has now survived — its 
cushion, as it has its master. I could fancy 
Ariosto sitting in it, and the satires in his own 
handwriting, which they unfold beside it, and 
the old bronze inkstand, loaded with figures, 
which belonged also to him, assist the willing 
delusion. This inkstand has an antique rather 
than an ancient appearance. Three nymphs 
lean forth from the circumference, and on the 
top of the lid stands a Cupid, winged and 
looking up, with a torch in one hand, his bow 
in the other, and his quiver beside him. A 
medal was bound around the skeleton of Ari- 
osto, with his likeness impressed upon it. I 
cannot say I think it had much native expres- 
sion, but perhaps the artist was in fault. On 
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Shelley's Letters 

the reverse is a hand, cutting, with a pair of 
scissors, the tongue from a serpent, upraised 
from the grass, with this legend, Pro bono malum. 
What this reverse of the boasted Christian 
maxim means, or how it applies to Ariosto, 1 
either as a satirist or a serious writer, I cannot 
exactly tell. The cicerone attempted to explain, 
and it is to his commentary that my bewilder- 
ing is probably due — if, indeed, the meaning 
be very plain, as is possibly the case. 

There is here a manuscript of the entire 
" Gerusalemme Liberata," written by Tasso's 
own hand ; a manuscript of some poems, 
written in prison, to the Duke Alfonso ; and 
the satires of Ariosto, written also by his own 
hand ; and the " Pastor Fido " of Guarini. 
The " Gerusalemme, ,, though it had evidently 
been copied and recopied, is interlined, partic- 

1 " The motto of this medal [by Poggini] is the same as that 
on the medal of Ariosto by Pastorini of Siena. But the meaning 
of the reverse design is very different. Both, it is probable, refer 
to the quarrel between Ariosto and the elder Cardinal d'Este ; 
but one takes the side of the poet, who is symbolized by the 
bees, expelled from their home as an ungrateful return for the 
honey which they have given ; while the other medal, taking 
the side of Cardinal d'Este, symbolizes Ariosto as a serpent 
who stings those that have nurtured him." — " Guide to the 
Italian Medals Exhibited in the British Museum" by C. F. Keary. 

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Shelley's Letters 

ularly toward the end, with numerous correc- 
tions. The handwriting of Ariosto is a small, 
firm, and pointed character, expressing, as I 
should say, a strong and keen but circum- 
scribed energy of mind ; that of Tasso is large, 
free, and flowing, except that there is a checked 
expression in the midst of its flow, which brings 
the letters into a smaller compass than one ex- 
pected from the beginning of the word. It is 
the symbol of an intense and earnest mind, ex- 
ceeding at times its own depth, and admonished 
to return by the chillness of the waters of 
oblivion striking upon its adventurous feet. 
You know I always seek in what I see the 
manifestation of something beyond the pres- 
ent and tangible object; and as we do not 
agree in physiognomy, so we may not agree 
now. But my business is to relate my own 
sensations, and not to attempt to inspire others 
with them. Some of the MSS. of Tasso were 
sonnets to his persecutor, which contain a great 
deal of what is called flattery. If Alfonso's 
ghost were asked how he felt those praises 
now, I wonder what he would say. But to 
me there is much more to pity than to con- 
demn in these entreaties and praises of Tasso. 

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Shelley's Letters 

It is as a bigot prays to and praises his God, 
whom he knows to be the most remorseless, 
capricious, and inflexible of tyrants, but whom 
he knows also to be omnipotent. Tasso's sit- 
uation was widely different from that of any 
persecuted being of the present day, for from 
the depth of dungeons public opinion might 
now at length be awakened to an echo that 
would startle the oppressor. But then there 
was no hope. There is something irresistibly 
pathetic to me in the sight of Tasso's own 
handwriting, moulding expressions of adulation 
and entreaty to a deaf and stupid tyrant, in an 
age when the most heroic virtue would have 
exposed its possessor to hopeless persecution, 
and — such is the alliance between virtue and 
genius — which unoffending genius could not 
escape. 

We went afterward to see his prison in the 
hospital of Sant' Anna, and I enclose you a 
piece of wood of the very door which for seven 
years and three months ' divided this glorious 
being from the air and the light which had 
nourished in him those influences which he has 

1 Tasso's confinement in this cell, if he was confined in it at 
all, only continued from March, 1579, to December, 1580. 
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communicated, through his poetry, to thou- 
sands. The dungeon is low and dark, and, 
when I say that it is really a very decent dun- 
geon, I speak as one who has seen the prisons 
in the Doge's palace at Venice. But it is a 
horrible abode for the coarsest and meanest 
thing that ever wore the shape of man, much 
more for one of delicate susceptibilities and 
elevated fancies. It is low, and has a grated 
window, and being sunk some feet below 
the level of the earth, is full of unwholesome 
damps. In the darkest corner is a mark in 
the wall, where the chains were riveted which 
bound him hand and foot. After some time, 
at the instance of some cardinal his friend, the 
duke allowed his victim a fireplace ; the mark 
where it was walled up yet remains. 

At the entrance of the Liceo, where the 
library is, we were met by a penitent ; his form 
was completely enveloped in ghostlike drapery 
of white flannel ; his bare feet were sandalled, 
and there was a kind of network visor drawn 
over his eyes, so as entirely to conceal his face. 
I imagine that this man had been adjudged to 
suffer this penance for some crime known only 
to himself and his confessor, and this kind of 

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exhibition is a striking instance of the power 
of the Catholic superstition over the human 
mind. He passed, rattling his wooden box for 
charity. 

Adieu. You will hear from me again before 
I arrive at Naples. 

Yours ever sincerely, 

p. b. s. 



XVIII. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Bologna, Monday, 9 November, 1818. 
My dear Peacock : — I have seen a quan- 
tity of things here — churches, palaces, stat- 
ues, fountains, and pictures ; and my brain is 
at this moment like a portfolio of an architect, 
or a print-shop, or a commonplace book. I 
will try to recollect something of what I have 
seen ; for indeed it requires, if it will obey, an 
act of volition. First we went to the cathe- 
dral, which contains nothing remarkable, ex- 
cept a kind of shrine, or rather a marble canopy, 
loaded with sculptures, and supported on four 
marble columns. We went then to a palace 

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— I am sure I forget the name of it — where 
we saw a large gallery of pictures. Of course, 
in a picture-gallery you see three hundred pic- 
tures you forget for one you remember. I 
remember, however, an interesting picture by 
Guido of the " Rape of Proserpine," in which 
Proserpine casts back her languid and half-un- 
willing eyes, as it were, to the flowers she had 
left ungathered in the fields of Enna. There 
was an exquisitely executed piece of Correggio, 
about four saints, one of whom seemed to have 
a pet dragon in a leash. I was told that it 
was the devil who was bound in that style — 
but who can make anything of four saints ? 
For what can they be supposed to be about ? 
There was one painting, indeed, by this master, 
" Christ Beatified," inexpressibly fine. It is a 
half figure, seated on a mass of clouds, tinged 
with an aetherial, roselike lustre ; the arms are 
expanded ; the whole frame seems dilated with 
expression ; the countenance is heavy, as it 
were, with the rapture of the spirit ; the lips 
parted, but scarcely parted, with the breath of 
intense but regulated passion ; the eyes are 
calm and benignant; the whole features har- 
monized in majesty and sweetness. The hair 

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is parted on the forehead, and falls in heavy 
locks on each side. It is motionless, but seems 
as if the faintest breath would move it. The 
colouring, I suppose, must be very good, if I 
could remark and understand it. The sky is 
of a pale aerial orange, like the tints of latest 
sunset; it does not seem painted around and 
beyond the figure, but everything seems to have 
absorbed and to have been penetrated by its 
hues. I do not think we saw any other of Cor- 
reggio, but this specimen gives me a very 
exalted idea of his powers. 

We went to see heaven knows how many 
more palaces — Ranuzzi, Marriscalchi, Aldo- 
brandi. If you want Italian names for any 
purpose, here they are ; I should be glad of 
them if I was writing a novel. I saw many 
more of Guido. One a Samson drinking 
water out of an ass's jaw-bone, in the midst 
of the slaughtered Philistines. Why he is 
supposed to do this, God, who gave him this 
jaw-bone, alone knows — but certain it is that 
the painting is a very fine one. The figure of 
Samson stands in strong relief in the foreground, 
coloured, as it were, in the hues of human life, 
and full of strength and elegance. Around him 

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lie the Philistines in all the attitudes of death. 
One prone, with the slight convulsion of pain 
just passing from his forehead, whilst on his 
lips and chin death lies as heavy as sleep. 
Another leaning on his arm, with his hand, 
white and motionless, hanging out beyond. 
In the distance, more dead bodies ; and, still 
further beyond, the blue sea and the blue 
mountains, and one white and tranquil sail. 

There is a " Murder of the Innocents," also 
by Guido, finely coloured, with much fine ex- 
pression — but the subject is very horrible, 
and it seemed deficient in strength — at least, 
you require the highest ideal energy, the most 
poetical and exalted conception of the subject, 
to reconcile you to such a contemplation. 
There was a " Jesus Christ Crucified " by the 
same, very fine. One gets tired, indeed, what- 
ever may be the conception and execution of 
it, of seeing that monotonous and agonized 
form for ever exhibited in one prescriptive 
attitude of torture. But the Magdalen, cling- 
ing to the cross with the look of passive and 
gentle despair beaming from beneath her bright 
flaxen hair, and the figure of St. John, with his 
looks uplifted in passionate compassion ; his 

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hands clasped, and his fingers twisting them- 
selves together, as it were, with involuntary- 
anguish ; his feet almost writhing up from the 
ground with the same sympathy ; and the 
whole of this arrayed in colours of a diviner 
nature, yet most like nature's self — of the 
contemplation of this one would never weary. 

There was a cc Fortune," too, of Guido ; a 
piece of mere beauty. There was the figure 
of Fortune on a globe, eagerly proceeding on- 
wards, and Love was trying to catch her back 
by the hair, and her face was half turned 
toward him ; her long chestnut hair was float- 
ing in the stream of the wind, and threw its 
shadow over her fair forehead. Her hazel 
eyes were fixed on her pursuer with a mean- 
ing look of playfulness, and a light smile was 
hovering on her lips. The colours which ar- 
rayed her delicate limbs were aetherial and 
warm. 

But, perhaps, the most interesting of all the 
pictures of Guido which I saw was a " Madonna 
Lattante." She is leaning over her child, and 
the maternal feelings with which she is per- 
vaded are shadowed forth on her soft and 
gentle countenance, and in her simple and 

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affectionate gestures. There is what an un- 
feeling observer would call a dulness in the 
expression of her face ; her eyes are almost 
closed ; her lip depressed ; there is a serious, 
and even a heavy relaxation, as it were, of all 
the muscles which are called into action by 
ordinary emotions ; but it is only as if the 
spirit of love, almost insupportable from its 
intensity, were brooding over, and weighing 
down the soul, or whatever it is, without 
which the material frame is inanimate and 
inexpressive. 

There is another painter here, called Fran- 
ceschini, 1 a Bolognese, who, though certainly 
very inferior to Guido, is yet a person of 
excellent powers. One entire church, that 
of Santa Catarina, is covered by his works. 
I do not know whether any of his pictures 
have ever been seen in England. His col- 
ouring is less warm than that of Guido, but 
nothing can be more clear and delicate ; it is 
as if he could have dipped his pencil in the 
hues of some serenest and star-shining twi- 
light. His forms have the same delicacy and 
aerial loveliness ; their eyes are all bright with 

1 The last painter of the Bolognese school (1648-1729). 
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innocence and love ; their lips scarce divided 
by some gentle and sweet emotion. His 
winged children are the loveliest ideal beings 
ever created by the human mind. These are 
generally, whether in the capacity of cherubim 
or Cupid, accessories to the rest of the picture ; 
and the underplot of their lovely and infantine 
play is something almost pathetic, from the 
excess of its unpretending beauty. One of 
the best of his pieces is an Annunciation of the 
Virgin ; the angel is beaming in beauty ; the 
Virgin, soft, retiring, and simple. 

We saw, besides, one picture of Raphael — 
St. Cecilia ; this is in another and higher style ; 
you forget that it is a picture as you look at it ; 
and yet it is most unlike any of those things 
which we call reality. It is one of the inspired 
and ideal kind, and seems to have been con- 
ceived and executed in a similar state of feel- 
ing to that which produced among the ancients 
those perfect specimens of poetry and sculpture 
which are the baffling models of succeeding 
generations. There is a unity and a perfec- 
tion in it of an incommunicable kind. The 
central figure, St. Cecilia, seems rapt in such 
inspiration as produced her image in the 

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painter's mind ; her deep, dark, eloquent eyes 
lifted up ; her chestnut hair flung back from 
her forehead, — she holds an organ in her 
hands, — her countenance, as it were, calmed 
by the depth of its passion and rapture, and 
penetrated throughout with the warm and radi- 
ant light of life. She is listening to the music 
of heaven, and, as I imagine, has just ceased to 
sing, for the four figures that surround her 
evidently point, by their attitudes, toward 
her ; particularly St. John, who, with a tender 
yet impassioned gesture, bends his countenance 
toward her, languid with the depth of his 
emotion. At her feet lie various instruments 
of music, broken and unstrung. Of the col- 
ouring I do not speak ; it eclipses Nature, yet 
it has all her truth and softness. 

We saw some pictures of Domenichino, 
Carracci, Albano, Guercino, Elisabetta Sirani. 
The two former — remember I do not pretend 
to taste — I cannot admire. Of the latter, 
there are some beautiful Madonnas. There 
are several of Guercino, which they said were 
very fine. I dare say they were, for the 
strength and complication of his figures made 
my head turn around. One, indeed, was cer- 
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tainly powerful. It was the representation of 
the founder of the Carthusians exercising his 
austerities in the desert, with a youth as his 
attendant, kneeling beside him at an altar ; on 
another altar stood a skull and a crucifix ; and 
around were the rocks and the trees of the 
wilderness. I never saw such a figure as this 
fellow. His face was wrinkled like a dried 
snake's skin, and drawn in long hard lines ; 
his very hands were wrinkled. He looked 
like an. animated mummy. He was clothed 
in a loose dress of death-coloured flannel, such 
as you might fancy a shroud might be after it 
had wrapt a corpse a month or two. It had a 
yellow, putrefied, ghastly hue, which it cast on 
all the objects around, so that the hands and 
face of the Carthusian and his companion were 
jaundiced by this sepulchral glimmer. Why 
write books against religion, when we may hang 
up such pictures ? But the world either will not 
or cannot see. The gloomy effect of this was 
softened, and at the same time its sublimity 
diminished, by the figure of the Virgin and 
Child in the sky, looking down with admira- 
tion on the monk, and a beautiful flying figure 
of an angel. 

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Shelley's Letters 

Enough of pictures. I saw the place where 
Guido and his mistress, Elisabetta Sirani, were 
buried. This lady was poisoned at the age of 
twenty-six, by another lover, a rejected one, 
of course. Our guide said she was very ugly, 
and that we might see her portrait to-morrow. 

Well, good night for the present. " To- 
morrow to fresh fields and pastures new." 

November 10. 
To-day we first went to see those divine pic- 
tures of Raphael and Guido again, and then 
rode up the mountains, behind this city, to 
visit a chapel dedicated to the Madonna. It 
made me melancholy to see that they had been 
varnishing and restoring some of these pictures, 
and that even some had been pierced by French 
bayonets. These are the symptoms of the 
mortality of man ; and perhaps few of his 
works are more evanescent than paintings. 
Sculpture retains its freshness for twenty cen- 
turies. The Apollo and the Venus are as they 
were. But books are perhaps the only pro- 
ductions of man coeval with the human race. 
Sophocles and Shakespeare can be produced 
and reproduced for ever. But how evanescent 

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are paintings, and must necessarily be ! Those 
of Zeuxis and Apelles are no more, and per- 
haps they bore the same relation to Homer 
and iEschylus that those of Guido and Raphael 
bear to Dante and Petrarch. There is one 
refuge from the despondency of this contem- 
plation. The material part, indeed, of their 
works must perish. But they survive in the 
mind of man, and the remembrances con- 
nected with them are transmitted from gen- 
eration to generation. The poet embodies 
them in his creations. The systems of phi- 
losophers are modelled to gentleness by their 
contemplation ; opinion, that legislator, is in- 
fected with their influence ; men become better 
and wiser; and the unseen seeds are perhaps 
thus sown, which shall produce a plant more 
excellent even than that from which they fell. 
But all this might as well be said or thought at 
Marlow as Bologna. . . . 

Yours ever most sincerely, 

p. b. s. 



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XIX. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Rome, 20 November, 181 8. 

My dear Peacock : — Behold me in the 
capital of the vanished world ! But I have 
seen nothing except St. Peter's and the Vati- 
can, overlooking the city in the midst of dis- 
tance, and the Dogana where they took us to 
have our luggage examined, which is built be- 
tween the ruins of a temple to Antoninus Pius. 
The Corinthian columns rise over the dwindled 
palaces of the modern town, and the wrought 
cornice is changed on one side, as it were, to 
masses of wave-worn precipice, which overhang 
you, far, far on high. 

I take the advantage of this rainy evening, 
and before Rome has effaced all other recollec- 
tions, to endeavour to recall the vanished 
scenes through which we have passed. We 
left Bologna, I forget on what day, and pass- 
ing by Rimini, Fano, and Foligno, along the 
Via Flaminia and Terni, have arrived at Rome 

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after ten days' somewhat tedious, but most in- 
teresting journey. The most remarkable things 
we saw were the Roman excavations in the 
rock, and the great waterfall of Terni. Of 
course you have heard that there are a Roman 
bridge and a triumphal arch at Rimini, and in 
what excellent taste they are built. The bridge 
is not unlike the Strand bridge, but more bold 
in proportion, and of course infinitely smaller. 
From Fano we left the coast of the Adriatic, 
and entered the Apennines, following the 
course of the Metaurus, the banks of which 
were the scene of the defeat of Asdrubal : and 
it is said, you can refer to the book, that Livy 
has given a very exact and animated descrip- 
tion of it. I forget all about it, but shall look 
as soon as our boxes are opened. Following 
the river, the vale contracts, the banks of the 
river become steep and rocky, the forests of 
oak and ilex, which overhang its emerald-col- 
oured stream, cling to their abrupt precipices. 
About four miles from Fossombrone, the river 
forces for itself a passage between the walls and 
toppling precipices of the loftiest Apennines, 
which are here rifted to their base, and under- 
mined by the narrow and tumultuous torrent. 

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It was a cloudy morning, and we had no con- 
ception of the scene that awaited us. Suddenly 
the low clouds were struck by the clear north 
wind, and like curtains of the finest gauze re- 
moved one by one, were drawn from before 
the mountain, whose heaven-cleaving pinnacles 
and black crags overhanging one another stood 
at length defined in the light of day. The 
road runs parallel to the river, at a consider- 
able height, and is carried through the moun- 
tain by a vaulted cavern. The marks of the 
chisel of the legionaries of the Roman consul 
are yet evident. 

We passed on day after day, until we came 
to Spoleto, I think the most romantic city I 
ever saw. There is here an aqueduct of aston- 
ishing elevation, which unites two rocky moun- 
tains ; there is a path of a torrent below, 
whitening the green dell with its broad and 
barren track of stones, and above there is a 
castle, apparently of great strength and tre- 
mendous magnitude, which overhangs the city, 
and whose marble bastions are perpendicular 
with the precipice. I never saw a more im- 
pressive picture, in which the shapes of nature 
are of the grandest order, but over which the 
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creations of man, sublime from their antiquity 
and greatness, seem to predominate. The 
castle was built by Belisarius or Narses, 1 I for- 
get which, but was of that epoch. 

From Spoleto we went to Terni, and saw 
the cataract of the Velino. The glaciers of 
Montanvert and the source of the Arveiron is 
the grandest spectacle I ever saw. This is the 
second. Imagine a river sixty feet in breadth, 
with a vast volume of waters, the outlet of a 
great lake among the higher mountains, falling 
three hundred feet into a sightless gulf of snow- 
white vapour, which bursts up for ever and for 
ever from a circle of black crags, and thence leap- 
ing downwards, making five or six other cata- 
racts, each fifty or a hundred feet high, which 
exhibit, on a smaller scale, and with beautiful and 
sublime variety, the same appearances. But 
words — and far less could painting — will not 
express it. Stand upon the brink of the plat- 
form of cliff which is directly opposite ; you 
see the ever-moving water stream down. It 
comes in thick and tawny folds, flaking off like 
solid snow gliding down a mountain. It does 

1 It was built by Theodoric, rebuilt by Narses, restored by 
Cardinal Albornoz, and enlarged by Pope Nicholas V. 

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not seem hollow within, but without it is un- 
equal, like the folding of linen thrown care- 
lessly down ; your eye follows it, and it is lost 
below, not in the black rocks which gird it 
around, but in its own foam and spray in the 
cloudlike vapours boiling up from below, which 
is not like rain, nor mist, nor spray, nor foam, 
but water, in a shape wholly unlike anything 
I ever saw before. It is as white as snow, but 
thick and impenetrable to the eye. The very 
imagination is bewildered in it. A thunder 
comes up from the abyss wonderful to hear ; 
for, though it ever sounds, it is never the same, 
but, modulated by the changing motion, rises 
and falls intermittingly ; we passed half an 
hour in one spot looking at it, and thought but 
a few minutes had gone by. The surrounding 
scenery is in its kind the loveliest and most 
sublime that can be conceived. In our first 
walk we passed through some olive groves of 
large and ancient trees, whose hoary and twisted 
trunks leaned in all directions. We then 
crossed a path of orange-trees by the riverside, 
laden with their golden fruit, and came to a 
forest of ilex of a large size, whose evergreen 
and acorn-bearing boughs were intertwined 

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over our winding path. Around, hemming in 
the narrow vale, were pinnacles of lofty moun- 
tains of pyramidical rock clothed with all ever- 
green plants and trees ; the vast pine, whose 
feathery foliage trembled in the blue air, the 
ilex, that ancestral inhabitant of these moun- 
tains, the arbutus with its crimson-coloured 
fruit and glittering leaves. After an hour's 
walk we came beneath the cataract of Terni, 
within the distance of half a mile ; nearer you 
cannot approach, for the Nar, which has here 
its confluence with the Velino, bars the passage. 
We then crossed the river formed by this con- 
fluence, over a narrow natural bridge of rock, 
and saw the cataract from the platform I first 
mentioned. We think of spending some time 
next year near this waterfall. The inn is 
very bad, or we should have stayed there 
longer. 

We came from Terni last night to a place 
called Nepi, and to-day arrived at Rome across 
the much belied Campagna di Roma, a place I 
confess infinitely to my taste. It is a flatter- 
ing picture of Bagshot Heath. But then there 
are Apennines on one side and Rome and 
St. Peter's on the other, and it is intersected 
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by perpetual dells clothed with arbutus and 
ilex. Adieu. 

Very faithfully yours, 

P. B. S. 



XX. 



TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Naples, 22 December, 1818. 
My dear Peacock : — I have received a 
letter from you here, dated November 1st; 
you see the reciprocation of letters from the 
term of our travels is more slow. I entirely 
agree with what you say about cc Childe 
Harold." The spirit in which it is written is, 
if insane, the most wicked and mischievous 
insanity that ever was given forth. It is a kind 
of obstinate and self-willed folly in which he 
hardens himself. I remonstrated with him in 
vain on the tone of mind from which such a 
view of things alone arises. For its real root 
is very different from its apparent one. Noth- 
ing can be less sublime than the true source 
of these expressions of contempt and despera- 
tion. The fact is that first, the Italian women 
with whom he associates are perhaps the most 

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contemptible of all who exist under the moon, 
the most ignorant, the most disgusting, the 
most bigoted ; countesses smell so strongly of 
garlic, that an ordinary Englishman cannot 
approach them. Well, L. B. is familiar with 
the lowest sort of these women, the people his 
gondolieri pick up in the streets. He asso- 
ciates with wretches who seem almost to have 
lost the gait and physiognomy of man, and 
who do not scruple to avow practices, which 
are not only not named, but I believe seldom 
even conceived in England. He says he dis- 
approves, but he endures. He is heartily and 
deeply discontented with himself; and con- 
templating in the distorted mirror of his own 
thoughts the nature and the destiny of man, 
what can he behold but objects of contempt 
and despair? But that he is a great poet, I 
think the Address to Ocean proves. And he 
has a certain degree of candour while you talk 
to him, but unfortunately it does not outlast 
your departure. No, I do not doubt, and for 
his sake, I ought to hope, that his present 
career must end soon in some violent circum- 
stance. 

Since I last wrote to you, I have seen the 
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ruins of Rome, the Vatican, St. Peter's, and 
all the miracles of ancient and modern art con- 
tained in that majestic city. The impression 
of it exceeds anything I have experienced in 
my travels. We stayed there only a week, 
intending to return at the end of February, 
and devote two or three months to its mines 
of inexhaustible contemplation, to which period 
I refer you for a minute account of it. We 
visited the Forum and the ruins of the Coliseum 
every day. The Coliseum is unlike any work 
of human hands I ever saw before. It is of 
enormous height and circuit, and arches built 
of massy stones are piled on one another, and 
jut into the blue air shattered into the forms 
of overhanging rocks. It has been changed 
by time into the image of an amphitheatre of 
rocky hills overgrown by the wild olive, the 
myrtle, and the fig-tree, and threaded by little 
paths which wind among its ruined stairs and 
immeasurable galleries : the copse-wood over- 
shadows you as you wander through its laby- 
rinths, and the wild weeds of this climate of 
flowers bloom under your feet. The arena is 
covered with grass, and pierces, like the skirts 
of a natural plain, the chasms of the broken 

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arches around. But a small part of the ex- 
terior circumference remains ; it is exquisitely 
light and beautiful, and the effect of the per- 
fection of its architecture, adorned with ranges 
of Corinthian pilasters, supporting a bold cor- 
nice, is such as to diminish the effect of its great- 
ness. The interior is all ruin. I can scarcely 
believe that when encrusted with Dorian mar- 
ble and ornamented by columns of Egyptian 
granite, its effect could have been so sublime 
and so impressive as in its present state. It 
is open to the sky, and it was the clear and 
sunny weather of the end of November in this 
climate when we visited it, day after day. 

Near it is the Arch of Constantine, or rather 
the Arch of Trajan ; for the servile and avari- 
cious Senate of degraded Rome ordered that 
the monument of his predecessor should be 
demolished in order to dedicate one to the 
Christian reptile, who had crept among the 
blood of his murdered family to the supreme 
power. It is exquisitely beautiful and perfect. 
The Forum is a plain in the midst of Rome, 
a kind of desert full of heaps of stones and 
pits, and though so near the habitations of men, 
is the most desolate place you can conceive, 

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The ruins of temples stand in and around it, 
shattered columns and ranges of others com- 
plete, supporting cornices of exquisite work- 
manship, and vast vaults of shattered domes 
distinct with regular compartments, once filled 
with sculptures of ivory or brass. The temples 
of Jupiter, and Concord, and Peace, and the 
Sun, and the Moon, and Vesta, are all within 
a short distance of this spot. Behold the 
wrecks of what a great nation once dedicated 
to the abstractions of the mind ! Rome is a 
city, as it were, of the dead, or rather of those 
who cannot die, and who survive the puny 
generations which inhabit and pass over the 
spot which they have made sacred to eternity. 
In Rome, at least in the first enthusiasm of 
your recognition of ancient time, you see noth- 
ing of the Italians. The nature of the city 
assists the delusion, for its vast and antique 
walls describe a circumference of sixteen miles, 
and thus the population is thinly scattered 
over this space, nearly as great as London. 
Wide wild fields are enclosed within it, and 
there are lanes and copses winding among the 
ruins, and a great green hill, lonely and bare, 
which overhangs the Tiber. The gardens of 

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the modern palaces are like wild woods of 
cedar and cypress and pine, and the neglected 
walks are overgrown with weeds. The English 
burying-place is a green slope near the walls, 
under the pyramidal tomb of Cestius, and is, 
I think, the most beautiful and solemn ceme- 
tery I ever beheld. To see the sun shining on 
its bright grass, fresh, when we first visited it, 
with the autumnal dews, and hear the whisper- 
ing of the wind among the leaves of the trees 
which have overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and 
the soil which is stirring in the sun-warm earth, 
and to mark the tombs, mostly of women and 
young people who were buried there, one 
might, if one were to die, desire the sleep they 
seem to sleep. Such is the human mind, and so 
it peoples with its wishes vacancy and oblivion. 
I have told you little about Rome; but I 
reserve the Pantheon, and St. Peter's, and the 
Vatican, and Raphael, for my return. About 
a fortnight ago I left Rome, and Mary and 
Claire followed in three days, for it was neces- 
sary to procure lodgings here without alighting 
at an inn. From my peculiar mode of travel- 
ling I saw little of the country, but could just 
observe that the wild beauty of the scenery 
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and the barbarous ferocity of the inhabitants 
progressively increased. On entering Naples, 
the first circumstance that engaged my atten- 
tion was an assassination. A youth ran out 
of a shop, pursued by a woman with a blud- 
geon, and a man armed with a knife. The 
man overtook him, and with one blow in the 
neck laid him dead in the road. On my ex- 
pressing the emotions of horror and indignation 
which I felt, a Calabrian priest, who travelled 
with me, laughed heartily, and attempted to 
quiz me, as what the English call a flat. I 
never felt such an inclination to beat any one. 
Heaven knows I have little power. But he 
saw that I looked extremely displeased, and 
was silent. This same man, a fellow of gigan- 
tic strength and stature, had expressed the 
most frantic terror of robbers on the road : 
he cried at the sight of my pistol, and it had 
been with great difficulty that the joint exer- 
tions of myself and the vetturino had quieted 
his hysterics. 

But external nature in these delightful re- 
gions contrasts with and compensates for the 
deformity and degradation of humanity. We 
have a lodging divided from the sea by the 

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Royal Gardens, and from our windows we see 
perpetually the blue waters of the bay, for ever 
changing, for ever the same, and encompassed 
by the mountainous island of Caprese, the 
lofty peaks which overhang Salerno, and the 
woody hill of Posilipo, whose promontories 
hide from us Misenum and the lofty isle 
Inarime, which, with its divided summit, forms 
the opposite horn of the bay. From the 
pleasant walks of the garden we see Vesuvius ; 
a smoke by day and a fire by night is seen 
upon its summit, and the glassy sea often 
reflects its light or shadow. The climate is 
delicious. We sit without a fire, with the 
windows open, and have almost all the pro- 
ductions of an English summer. The weather 
is usually like what Wordsworth calls "the 
first fine day of March ; " sometimes very 
much warmer, though perhaps it wants that 
cc each minute sweeter than before," which 
gives an intoxicating sweetness to the awaken- 
ing of the earth from its winter's sleep in Eng- 
land. We have made two excursions, one to 
Baiae, and one to Vesuvius, and we propose 
to visit, successively, the islands, Paestum, 
Pompeii, and Beneventum. 
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We set off an hour after sunrise one radiant 
morning in a little boat ; there was not a cloud 
in the sky, nor a wave upon the sea, which was 
so translucent that you could see the hollow 
caverns clothed with the glaucous sea-moss, 
and the leaves and branches of those delicate 
weeds that pave the unequal bottom of the 
water. As noon approached, the heat, and 
especially the light, became intense. We 
passed Posilipo, and came first to the eastern 
point of the Bay of Puzzoli, which is within 
the great Bay of Naples, and which again en- 
closes that of Baiae. Here are lofty rocks 
and craggy islets, with arches and portals of 
precipice standing in the sea, and enormous 
caverns, which echoed faintly with the murmur 
of the languid tide. This is called La Scuola 
di Virgilio. We then went directly across to 
the promontory of Misenum, leaving the pre- 
cipitous island of Nisida on the right. Here 
we were conducted to see the Mare Morto, 
and the Elysian Fields, the spot on which 
Virgil places the scenery of the sixth iEneid. 
Though extremely beautiful, as a lake, and 
woody hills, and this divine sky must make it, 
I confess my disappointment. The guide 

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showed us an antique cemetery, where the 
niches used for placing the cinerary urns of 
the dead yet remain. We then coasted the Bay 
of Baiae to the left, in which we saw many pic- 
turesque and interesting ruins ; but I have to 
remark that we never disembarked but we 
were disappointed, while from the boat the 
effect of the scenery was inexpressibly delight- 
ful. The colours of the water and the air 
breathe over all things here the radiance of 
their own beauty. After passing the Bay 
of Baiae, and observing the ruins of its antique 
grandeur standing like rocks in the transparent 
sea under our boat, we landed to visit Lake 
Avernus. We passed through the cavern of 
the sibyl, not Virgil's sibyl, which pierces one 
of the hills which circumscribe the lake, and 
came to a calm and lovely basin of water sur- 
rounded by dark woody hills and profoundly 
solitary. Some vast ruins of the temple of 
Pluto stand on a lawny hill on one side of it, 
and are reflected in its windless mirror. It is 
far more beautiful than the Elysian Fields, but 
there are all the materials for beauty in the 
latter, and the Avernus was once a chasm of 
deadly and pestilential vapours. About half a 
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mile from Avernus, a high hill called Monte 
Novo was thrown up by volcanic fire. 

Passing onward, we came to Pozzoli, the an- 
cient Dicaearchea, where there are the columns 
remaining of a temple to Serapis, and the 
wreck of an enormous amphitheatre, changed, 
like the Coliseum, into a natural hill of the 
overteeming vegetation. Here also is the Sol- 
fatara, of which there is a poetical description 
in the " Civil War " of Petronius, 1 beginning 
" Est locus," and in which the verses of the 
poet are infinitely finer than what he describes, 
for it is not a very curious place. After seeing 
these things we returned by moonlight to 
Naples in our boat. What colours there were 
in the sky, what radiance in the evening star, 
and how the moon was encompassed by a light 
unknown to our regions ! 

1 The passage is as follows s 

" Est locus, exciso penitus demersus hiatu, 
Parthenopen inter magnseque Dicarchidos arva, 
Cocyta perfusus aqua ; nam spiritus extra 
Qui furit, effusus funesto spargitur aestu. 
Non hasc autumno tellus viret, aut alit herbas 
Cespite laetus ager; non verno persona cantu, 
Mollia discordi strepitu virgulta loquuntur. 
Sed chaos, et nigro squallentia pumice saxa 
Gaudent ferali circum tumulata cupressu." 
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Shelley's Letters 

Our next excursion was to Vesuvius. We 
went to Resina in a carriage, where Mary and 
I mounted mules, and Claire was carried in a 
chair on the shoulders of four men, much like 
a member of Parliament after he has gained his 
election, and looking, with less reason, quite as 
frightened. So we arrived at the hermitage of 
San Salvador, where an old hermit, belted with 
rope, set forth the plates for our refreshment. 

Vesuvius is, after the glaciers, the most im- 
pressive exhibition of the energies of nature I 
ever saw. It has not the immeasurable great- 
ness, the overpowering magnificence, nor, above 
all, the radiant beauty of the glaciers ; but it 
has all their character of tremendous and irre- 
sistible strength. From Resina to the hermit- 
age you wind up the mountain, and cross a 
vast stream of hardened lava, which is an 
actual image of the waves of the sea, changed 
into hard block by enchantment. The lines 
of the boiling flood seem to hang in the air, 
and it is difficult to believe that the billows 
which seem hurrying down upon you are not 
actually in motion. This plain was once a sea 
of liquid fire. From the hermitage we crossed 
another vast stream of lava, and then went on 

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foot up the cone. This is the only part of the 
ascent in which there is any difficulty, and that 
difficulty has been much exaggerated. It is 
composed of rocks of lava and declivities of 
ashes ; by ascending the former, and descend- 
ing the latter, there is very little fatigue. On 
the summit is a kind of irregular plain, the 
most horrible chaos that can be imagined ; 
riven into ghastly chasms, and heaped up with 
tumuli of great stones and cinders, and enor- 
mous rocks blackened and calcined, which had 
been thrown from the volcano upon one an- 
other in terrible confusion. In the midst 
stands the conical hill, from which volumes 
of smoke and fountains of liquid fire are 
rolled forth for ever. The mountain is at 
present in a slight state of eruption, and a 
thick, heavy white smoke is perpetually rolled 
out, interrupted by enormous columns of an 
impenetrable black bituminous vapour, which 
is hurled up, fold after fold, into the sky with 
a deep hollow sound, and fiery stones are 
rained down from its darkness, and a black 
shower of ashes fell even where we sat. The 
lava, like the glacier, creeps on perpetually, 
with a crackling sound as of suppressed fire. 
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There are several springs of lava ; and in one 
place it gushes precipitously over a high crag, 
rolling down the half-molten rocks, and its 
own overhanging waves : a cataract of quiver- 
ing fire. We approached the extremity of one 
of the rivers of lava ; it is about twenty feet in 
breadth and ten in height; and as the inclined 
plane was not rapid, its motion was very slow. 
We saw the masses of its dark exterior surface 
detach themselves as it moved, and betray the 
depth of the liquid flame. In the day the fire 
is but slightly seen ; you only observe a trem- 
ulous motion in the air, and streams and foun- 
tains of white sulphurous smoke. 

At length we saw the sun sink between 
Capreae and Inarime, and, as the darkness in- 
creased, the effect of the fire became more 
beautiful. We were, as it were, surrounded 
by streams and cataracts of the red and radiant 
fire ; and in the midst, from the column of 
bituminous smoke shot up into the air, fell the 
vast masses of rock, white with the light of 
their intense heat, leaving behind them 
through the dark vapour trains of splendour. 
We descended by torchlight, and I should 
have enjoyed the scenery on my return, but 
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they conducted me, I know not how, to the 
hermitage in a state of intense bodily suffering, 
the worst effect of which was spoiling the 
pleasure of Mary and Claire. Our guides on 
the occasion were complete savages. You have 
no idea of the horrible cries which they sud- 
denly utter, no one knows why, the clamour, 
the vociferation, the tumult. Claire in her 
palanquin suffered most from it; and when I 
had gone on before they threatened to leave 
her in the middle of the road, which they 
would have done had not my Italian servant 
promised them a beating, after which they 
became quiet. Nothing, however, can be 
more picturesque than the gestures and the 
physiognomies of these savage people. And 
when, in the darkness of night, they unex- 
pectedly begin to sing in chorus some frag- 
ments of their wild but sweet national music, 
the effect is exceedingly fine. 

Since I wrote this I have seen the Museum 
of this city. Such statues ! There is a Venus ; 
an ideal shape of the most winning loveliness. 
A Bacchus, more sublime than any living be- 
ing. A Satyr making love to a youth, in 
which the expressed life of the sculpture, and 

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the inconceivable beauty of the form of the 
youth, overcome one's repugnance to the sub- 
ject. There are multitudes of wonderfully fine 
statues found in Herculaneum and Pompeii. 
We are going to see Pompeii the first day that 
the sea is waveless. Herculaneum is almost filled 
up ; no more excavations are made ; the king 
bought the ground and built a palace upon it. 

You don't see much of Hunt. I wish you 
could contrive to see him when you go to 
town, and ask him what he means to answer 
to Lord Byron's invitation. He has now an 
opportunity, if he likes, of seeing Italy. What 
do you think of joining his party, and paying 
us a visit next year; I mean as soon as the 
reign of winter is dissolved ? Write to me 
your thoughts upon this. I cannot express to 
you the pleasure it would give me to welcome 
such a party. 

I have depression enough of spirits, and not 
good health, though I believe the warm air of 
Naples does me good. We see absolutely no 
one here. 

Adieu, my dear Peacock. 

Affectionately your friend, 

p. b. s. 
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Shelley's Letters 
XXI. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Naples, 26 January, 1819. 

My dear Peacock : — Your two letters 
arrived within a few days of each other, one 
being directed to Naples, and the other to Li- 
vorno. They are more welcome visitors to 
me than mine can be to you — I writing as 
from sepulchres, you from the habitations of 
men yet unburied ; though the sexton, Castle- 
reagh, after having dug their grave, stands with 
his spade in his hand, evidently doubting 
whether he will not be forced to occupy it him- 
self. Your news about the bank-note trials is 
excellent good. Do I not recognize in it the 
influence of Cobbett ? You don't tell me what 
occupies Parliament ? I know you will laugh 
at my demand, and assure me that it is indif- 
ferent. Your pamphlet I want exceedingly to 
see. Your calculations in the letter are clear, 
but require much oral explanation. You know 
I am an infernal arithmetician. If none but 
me had contemplated " lucentemque globum lun<e, 
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Titaniaque astra" the world would yet have 
doubted whether they were many hundred feet 
higher than the mountain-tops. 

In my accounts of pictures and things, I am 
more pleased to interest you than the many ; 
and this is fortunate, because, in the first place, 
I have no idea of attempting the latter, and if 
I did attempt it, I should assuredly fail. A 
perception of the beautiful characterizes those 
who differ from ordinary men, and those who 
can perceive it would not buy enough to pay 
the printer. Besides, I keep no journal, and 
the only records of my voyage will be letters I 
send to you. The bodily fatigue of standing 
for hours in galleries exhausts me : I believe 
that I don't see half what I ought, on that 
account. And then we know nobody, and the 
common Italians are so sullen and stupid, it's 
impossible to get information from them. At 
Rome, where the people seem superior to any 
in Italy, I cannot fail to stumble on something 
more. Oh, if I had health, and strength, and 
equal spirits, what boundless intellectual im- 
provement might I not gather in this wonder- 
ful country ! At present I write little else but 
poetry, and little of that. My first act of 

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" Prometheus " is complete, and I think you 
would like it. I consider poetry very subordi- 
nate to moral and political science, and if I 
were well, certainly I would aspire to the latter, 
for I can conceive a great work, embodying 
the discoveries of all ages, and harmonizing the 
contending creeds by which mankind have been 
ruled. Far from me is such an attempt, and 
I shall be content, by exercising my fancy, to 
amuse myself, and perhaps some others, and 
cast what weight I can into the scale of that 
balance which the giant of Arthegall holds. 1 

Since you last heard from me we have been 
to see Pompeii, and are waiting now for the 
return of spring weather, to visit, first, Paes- 
tum, and then the islands ; after which we shall 
return to Rome. I was astonished at the re- 
mains of this city; I had no idea of anything 
so perfect yet remaining. My idea of the 
mode of its destruction was this : first, an 
earthquake shattered it, and unroofed almost 
all its temples, and split its columns ; then a 
rain of light, small pumice-stones fell ; then 
torrents of boiling water, mixed with ashes, 

1 " The allusion is to the ' Faerie Queene,' book v., canto 3." 

— Peacock. 

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filled up all its crevices. A wide flat hill, from 
which the city was excavated, is now covered 
by thick woods, and you see the tombs and 
the theatres, the temples and the houses, sur- 
rounded by the uninhabited wilderness. We 
entered the town from the side toward the 
sea, and first saw two theatres, one more mag- 
nificent than the other, strewn with the ruins 
of the white marble which formed their seats 
and cornices, wrought with deep, bold sculp- 
ture. In the front, between the stage and the 
seats, is the circular space occasionally occupied 
by the chorus. The stage is very narrow, but 
long, and divided from this space by a narrow 
enclosure parallel to it, I suppose for the 
orchestra. On each side are the consuls' boxes, 
and below, in the theatre at Herculaneum, were 
found two equestrian statues of admirable work- 
manship, occupying the same place as the great 
bronze lamps did at Drury Lane. The small- 
est of the theatres is said to have been comic, 
though I should doubt. From both you see, 
as you sit on the seats, a prospect of the most 
wonderful beauty. 

You then pass through the ancient streets ; 
they are very narrow, and the houses rather 
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small, but all constructed on an admirable plan, 
especially for this climate. The rooms are 
built around a court, or sometimes two, accord- 
ing to the extent of the house. In the midst 
is a fountain, sometimes surrounded with a 
portico, supported on fluted columns of white 
stucco ; the floor is paved with mosaic, some- 
times wrought in imitation of vine leaves, some- 
times in quaint figures, and more or less 
beautiful, according to the rank of the inhabit- 
ant. There were paintings on all, but most 
of them have been removed to decorate the 
royal museums. Little winged figures, and 
small ornaments of exquisite elegance yet re- 
main. There is an ideal life in the forms of 
these paintings of an incomparable loveliness, 
though most are evidently the work of very 
inferior artists. It seems as if, from the atmos- 
phere of mental beauty which surrounded 
them, every human being caught a splendour 
not his own. In one house you see how the 
bedrooms were managed : a small sofa was 
built up, where the cushions were placed ; two 
pictures, one representing Diana and Endym- 
ion, the other Venus and Mars, decorate the 
chamber; and a little niche, which contains 
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Shelley's Letters 

the statue of a domestic god. The floor is 
composed of a rich mosaic of the rarest 
marbles, agate, jasper, and porphyry ; it looks 
to the marble fountain and the snow-white 
columns, whose entablatures strew the floor of 
the portico they supported. The houses have 
only one story, and the apartments, though 
not large, are very lofty. A great advantage 
results from this, wholly unknown in our cities. 
The public buildings, whose ruins are now 
forests as it were of white fluted columns, and 
which then supported entablatures loaded with 
sculptures, were seen on all sides over the 
roofs of the houses. This was the excellence 
of the ancients. Their private expenses were 
comparatively moderate ; the dwelling of one 
of the chief senators of Pompeii is elegant 
indeed, and adorned with most beautiful speci- 
mens of art, but small. But their public build- 
ings are everywhere marked by the bold and 
grand designs of an unsparing magnificence. 
In the little town of Pompeii — it contained 
about twenty thousand inhabitants — it is won- 
derful to see the number and the grandeur of 
their public buildings. Another advantage, 
too, is that, in the present case, the glorious 

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scenery around is not shut out, and that, unlike 
the inhabitants of the Cimmerian ravines of 
modern cities, the ancient Pompeians could 
contemplate the clouds and the lamps of 
heaven; could see the moon rise high behind 
Vesuvius, and the sun set in the sea, tremulous 
with an atmosphere of golden vapour, between 
Inarime and Misenum. 

We next saw the temples. Of the temple 
of iEsculapius little remains but an altar of 
black stone, adorned with a cornice imitating 
the scales of a serpent. His statue, in terra- 
cotta, was found in the cell. The temple of 
Isis is more perfect. It is surrounded by a 
portico of fluted columns, and in the area 
around it are two altars, and many ceppi for 
statues ; and a little chapel of white stucco, as 
hard as stone, of the most exquisite proportion ; 
its panels are adorned with figures in bas-relief, 
slightly indicated, but of a workmanship the 
most delicate and perfect that can be conceived. 
They are Egyptian subjects, executed by a 
Greek artist, who has harmonized all the un- 
natural extravagances of the original conception 
into the supernatural loveliness of his country's 
genius. They scarcely touch the ground with 

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their feet, and their wind-uplifted robes seem 
in the place of wings. The temple in the midst, 
raised on a high platform, and approached by- 
steps, was decorated with exquisite paintings, 
some of which we saw in the museum at 
Portici. It is small, of the same materials as 
the chapel, with a pavement of mosaic and 
fluted Ionic columns of white stucco, so white 
that it dazzles you to look at it. 

Thence through other porticos and laby- 
rinths of walls and columns, for I cannot hope 
to detail everything to you, we came to the 
Forum. This is a large square surrounded 
by lofty porticos of fluted columns, some 
broken, some entire, their entablatures strewed 
under them. The temple of Jupiter, of Venus, 
and another temple, the tribunal, and the hall 
of public justice, with their forests of lofty 
columns, surround the Forum. Two pedestals 
or altars of an enormous size — for, whether 
they supported equestrian statues, or were the 
altars of the temple of Venus, before which 
they stand, the guide could not tell — occupy 
the lower end of the Forum. At the upper 
end, supported on an elevated platform, stands 
the temple of Jupiter. Under the colonnade 
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of its portico we sate, and pulled out our 
oranges, and figs, and bread, and medlars — 
sorry fare, you will say — and rested to eat. 
Here was a magnificent spectacle. Above and 
between the multitudinous shafts of the sun- 
shining columns was seen the sea, reflecting 
the purple heaven of noon above it, and sup- 
porting, as it were, on its line the dark lofty 
mountains of Sorrento, of a blue inexpressibly 
deep, and tinged toward their summits with 
streaks of new-fallen snow. Between was one 
small green island. To the right was Capreae, 
Inarime, Prochyta, and Misenum. Behind 
was the single summit of Vesuvius, rolling 
forth volumes of thick white smoke, whose 
foamlike column was sometimes darted into 
the clear dark sky, and fell in little streaks 
along the wind. Between Vesuvius and the 
nearer mountains, as through a chasm, was 
seen the main line of the loftiest Apennines to 
the east. The day was radiant and warm. 
Every now and then we heard subterranean 
thunder of Vesuvius ; its distant deep peals 
seemed to shake the very air and light of day, 
which interpenetrated our frames, with the 
sullen and tremendous sound. This scene was 
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what the Greeks beheld ; Pompeii, you know, 
was a Greek city. They lived in harmony 
with nature ; and the interstices of their incom- 
parable columns were portals, as it were, to 
admit the spirit of beauty which animates this 
glorious universe to visit those whom it in- 
spired. If such was Pompeii, what was Athens ? 
What scene was exhibited from the Acropolis, 
the Parthenon, and the temples of Hercules, 
and Theseus, and the Winds ? the islands and 
the iEgean Sea, the mountains of Argolis, and 
the peaks of Pindus and Olympus, and the 
darkness of the Boeotian forests interspersed ? 

From the Forum we went to another public 
place ; a triangular portico, half enclosing the 
ruins of an enormous temple. It is built on 
the edge of the hill overlooking the sea. That 
black point is the temple. In the apex of the 
triangle stands an altar and a fountain, and be- 
fore the altar once stood the statue of the builder 
of the portico. Returning hence, and following 
the consular road, we came to the eastern gate 
of the city. The walls are of enormous strength 
and enclose a space of three miles. On each 
side of the road beyond the gate are built the 
tombs. How unlike ours ! They seem not 
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so much hiding-places of that which must de- 
cay, as voluptuous chambers for immortal 
spirits. They are of marble, radiantly white ; 
and two, especially beautiful, are loaded with 
exquisite bas-reliefs. On the stucco wall that 
encloses them are little emblematic figures of a 
relief exceedingly low, of dead and dying ani- 
mals, and little winged genii, and female forms 
bending in groups in some funeral office. The 
higher reliefs represent, one a nautical subject, 
and the other a bacchanalian one. Within the 
cell stand the cinerary urns, sometimes one, 
sometimes more. It , is said that paintings 
were found within, which are now, as has 
been everything movable in Pompeii, re- 
moved, and scattered about in royal museums. 
These tombs were the most impressive things 
of all. The wild woods surround them on 
either side, and along the broad stones of the 
paved road which divided them, you hear 
the late leaves of autumn shiver and rustle 
in the stream of the inconstant wind, as it 
were, like the step of ghosts. 1 The radiance 
and magnificence of these dwellings of the 

1 The same comparison is made in the " Ode to the West 
Wind," " The Sensitive Plant," and the " Ode to Naples." 
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dead, the white freshness of the scarcely fin- 
ished marble, the impassioned or imaginative 
life of the figures which adorn them, contrast 
strangely with the simplicity of the houses of 
those who were living when Vesuvius over- 
whelmed them. 

I have forgotten the amphitheatre, which is 
of great magnitude, though much inferior to 
the Coliseum. I now understand why the 
Greeks were such great poets : and, above all, 
I can account, it seems to me, for the har- 
mony, the unity, the perfection, the uniform 
excellence, of all their works of art. They 
lived in a perpetual commerce with external 
nature, and nourished themselves upon its 
forms. Their theatres were all open to the 
mountains and the sky. Their columns, the 
ideal types of a sacred forest, with its roof of 
interwoven tracery, admitted the light and 
wind ; the odour and the freshness of the 
country penetrated the cities. Their temples 
were mostly upaithric ; and the flying clouds, 
the stars, or the deep sky, were seen above. 
Oh, but for that series of wretched wars which 
terminated in the Roman conquest of the 
world; but for the Christian religion, which 
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put the finishing stroke on the ancient system ; 
but for those changes that conducted Athens 
to its ruin, — to what an eminence might not 
humanity have arrived ! 

Adieu ! yours most faithfully, 

P. B. S. 

XXII. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Naples, 25 February, 1819. 

My dear Peacock : — I am much inter- 
ested to hear of your progress in the object of 
your removal to London, 1 especially as I hear 
from Horace Smith of the advantages attend- 
ing it. There is no person in the world who 
would more sincerely rejoice in any good for- 
tune that might befall you than I should. 

We are on the point of quitting Naples for 
Rome. The scenery which surrounds this city 
is more delightful than any within the immedi- 
ate reach of civilized man. I don't think I 
have mentioned to you the Lago d'Agnano 
and the Caccia d'Ischieri, and I have since 
seen what obscures those lovely forms in my 

1 On becoming an assistant examiner at the India House. 
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memory. They are both the craters of extin- 
guished volcanos, and nature has thrown forth 
forests of oak and ilex, and spread mossy lawns 
and clear lakes over the dead or sleeping fire. 
The first is a scene of a wider and milder char- 
acter, with soft sloping, wooded hills, and grassy 
declivities declining to the lake, and cultivated 
plains of vines woven upon poplar-trees, 
bounded by the theatre of hills. Innumerable 
wild water-birds, quite tame, inhabit this place. 
The other is a royal chase, is surrounded by 
steep and lofty hills, and only accessible 
through a wide gate of massy oak, from the 
vestibule of which the spectacle of precipitous 
hills, hemming in a narrow and circular vale, is 
suddenly disclosed. The hills are covered 
with thick woods of ilex, myrtle, and laurus- 
tinus ; the polished leaves of the ilex, as they 
wave in their multitudes under the partial 
blasts which rush through the chasms of the 
vale, glitter above the dark masses of foliage 
below, like the white foam of waves upon the 
deep blue sea. The plain so surrounded is at 
most three miles in circumference. It is occu- 
pied partly by a lake, with bold shores wooded 
by evergreens, and interrupted by a sylvan 
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promontory of the wild forest whose mossy 
boughs overhang its expanse, of a silent and 
purple darkness, like an Italian midnight ; and 
partly by the forest itself, of all gigantic trees, 
but the oak especially, whose jagged boughs, 
now leafless, are hoary with thick lichens, and 
loaded with the massy and deep foliage of the 
ivy. The effect of the dark eminences that 
surround this plain, seen through the boughs, 
is of an enchanting solemnity. There we saw in 
one instance wild boars and a deer, and in an- 
other, a spectacle little suited to the antique 
and Latonian nature of the place — King 
Ferdinand in a winter enclosure, watching to 
shoot wild boars. The underwood was prin- 
cipally evergreen, all lovely kinds of fern and 
furze; the cytisus, a delicate kind of furze, 
with a pretty yellow blossom, the myrtle, and 
the myrica. The willow-trees had just begun 
to put forth their green and golden buds, and 
gleamed like points of lambent fire along the 
wintry forest. The Grotto del Cane, too, we 
saw, because other people see it, but would 
not allow the dog to be exhibited in torture 
for our curiosity. The poor little animals 
stood moving their tails in a slow and dismal 
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Shelley's Letters 

manner, as if perfectly resigned to their condi- 
tion, a curlike emblem of voluntary servitude. 
The effect of the vapour, which extinguishes a 
torch, is to cause suffocation at last, through 
a process which makes the lungs feel as if they 
were torn by sharp points within. So a surgeon 
told us, who tried the experiment on himself. 

There was a Greek city, sixty miles to the 
south of Naples, called Posidonia, now Pesto, 
where there still subsist three temples of Etrus- 
can architecture, still perfect. From this city 
we have just returned. The weather was most 
unfavourable for our expedition. After two 
months of cloudless serenity, it began raining 
cats and dogs. The first night we slept at 
Salerno, a large city situate in the recess of a 
deep bay : surrounded with stupendous moun- 
tains of the same name. A few miles from 
Torre del Greco we entered on the pass of the 
mountains, which is a line dividing the isthmus 
of those enormous piles of rock which compose 
the southern boundary of the Bay of Naples, 
and the northern one of that of Salerno. On 
one side is a lofty conical hill, crowned with 
the turrets of a ruined castle, and cut into 
platforms for cultivation — at least every ravine 



Shelley's Letters 

and glen, whose precipitous sides admitted of 
other vegetation but that of the rock-rooted 
ilex : on the other the aetherial snowy crags of 
an immense mountain, whose terrible linea- 
ments were at intervals concealed or disclosed 
by volumes of dense clouds rolling under the 
tempest. Half a mile from this spot, between 
orange and lemon groves of a lovely village, 
suspended as it were on an amphitheatral preci- 
pice, whose golden globes contrasted with the 
white walls and dark green leaves which they 
almost outnumbered, shone the sea. A burst 
of the declining sunlight illumined it. The 
road led along the brink of the precipice, to- 
ward Salerno. Nothing could be more glo- 
rious than the scene. The immense mountains 
covered with the rare and divine vegetation of 
this climate, with many folding vales, and deep 
dark recesses, which the fancy scarcely could 
penetrate, descended from their snowy summits 
precipitously to the sea. Before us was Salerno, 
built into a declining plain, between the moun- 
tains and the sea. Beyond, the other shore 
of sky-cleaving mountains, then dim with the 
mist of tempest. Underneath, from the base 
of the precipice where the road conducted, 

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rocky promontories jutted into the sea, covered 
with olive and ilex woods, or with the ruined 
battlements of some Roman or Saracenic for- 
tress. We slept at Salerno, and the next 
morning, before daybreak, proceeded to Posi- 
donia. The night had been tempestuous, and 
our way lay by the sea-sand. It was utterly 
dark, except when the long line of wave burst, 
with a sound like thunder, beneath the starless 
sky, and cast up a kind of mist of cold white 
lustre. When morning came, we found our- 
selves travelling in a wide desert plain, perpet- 
ually interrupted by wild irregular glens, and 
bounded on all sides by the Apennines and the 
sea. Sometimes it was covered with forest, 
sometimes dotted with underwood, or mere 
tufts of fern and furze, and the wintry dry 
tendrils of creeping plants. I have never but 
in the Alps seen an amphitheatre of moun- 
tains so magnificent. After travelling fifteen 
miles, we came to a river, the bridge of which 
had been broken, and which was so swollen 
that the ferry would not take the carriage 
across. We had, therefore, to walk seven 
miles of a muddy road, which led to the an- 
cient city across the desolate Maremma. The 
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air was scented with the sweet smell of violets 
of an extraordinary size and beauty. At length 
we saw the sublime and massy colonnades, 
skirting the horizon of the wilderness. We 
entered by the ancient gate, which is now no 
more than a chasm in the rocklike wall. 
Deeply sunk in the ground beside it were the 
ruins of a sepulchre, which the ancients were 
in the habit of building beside the public way. 
The first temple, which is the smallest, consists 
of an outer range of columns, quite perfect, and 
supporting a perfect architrave and two shat- 
tered frontispieces. The proportions are ex- 
tremely massy, and the architecture entirely 
unornamented and simple. These columns do 
not seem more than forty feet high, 1 but the 
perfect proportions diminish the apprehension 
of their magnitude ; it seems as if inequality 
and irregularity of form were requisite to force 
on us the relative idea of greatness. The 
scene from between the columns of the temple 
consists on one side of the sea, to which the 

1 " The height of the columns is respectively 18 feet, 6 inches 
and 28 feet, 5 inches and 6}i lines, in the first two temples ; and 
21 feet, 6 inches, in the Basilica. This shows the justice of the 
remarks on the difference of real and apparent magnitude." 

— Peacock. 
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gentler hill on which it is built slopes ; and on 
the other of the grand amphitheatre of the 
loftiest Apennines, dark purple mountains, 
crowned with snow, and intersected here and 
there by long bars of hard and leaden-coloured 
cloud. The effect of the jagged outline of 
mountains, through groups of enormous col- 
umns on one side, and on the other the level 
horizon of the sea, is inexpressibly grand. The 
second temple is much larger, and also more 
perfect. Beside the outer range of columns, it 
contains an interior range of column above 
column, and the ruins of a wall which was 
the screen of the penetralia. With little diver- 
sity of ornament, the order of architecture is 
similar to that of the first temple. The col- 
umns in all are fluted, and built of a porous 
volcanic stone, which time has dyed with a 
rich and yellow colour. The columns are 
one-third larger, and, like that of the first, 
diminish from the base to the capital, so that 
but for the chastening effect of their admirable 
proportions, their magnitude would, from the 
delusion of perspective, seem greater, not less 
than it is : though perhaps we ought to say, not 
that this symmetry diminishes your apprehen- 
ds 



Shelley's Letters 

sion of their magnitude, but that it overpowers 
the idea of relative greatness, by establishing 
within itself a system of relations destructive 
of your idea of its relation with other objects, 
on which our ideas of size depend. The third 
temple is what they call a basilica ; three col- 
umns alone remain of the interior range ; the 
exterior is perfect, but that the cornice and 
frieze in many places have fallen. This temple 
covers more ground than either of the others, 
but its columns are of an intermediate magni- 
tude between those of the second and the 
first. 

We only contemplated these sublime monu- 
ments for two hours, and of course could only 
bring away so imperfect a conception of them 
as is the shadow of some half-remembered 
dream. 

The royal collection of paintings in this city 
is sufficiently miserable. Perhaps the most 
remarkable is the original studio by Michael 
Angelo, of the " Day of Judgment," which is 
painted in fresco on the Sixtine Chapel of the 
Vatican. It is there so defaced as to be wholly 
indistinguishable. I cannot but think the 
genius of this artist overrated. He has not 
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only no temperance, no modesty, no feeling 
for the just boundaries of art, — and in these 
respects any admirable genius may err, — but 
has no sense of beauty, and to want this is to 
want the sense of the creative power of mind. 
What is terror without a contrast with, and a 
connection with, loveliness? How well Dante 
understood this secret, Dante, with whom this 
artist has been so presumptuously compared ! 
What a thing his " Moses " is ; how distorted 
from all that is natural and majestic, only less 
monstrous and detestable than its historical 
prototype. In the picture to which I allude, 
God is leaning out of heaven, as it were eagerly 
enjoying the final scene of the infernal tragedy 
He set the universe to act. The Holy Ghost, 
in the shape of a dove, is under him. Under 
the Holy Ghost stands Jesus Christ, in an 
attitude of haranguing the assembly. This 
figure, which his subject, or rather the view 
which it became him to take of it, ought to 
have modelled of a calm, severe, awe-inspiring 
majesty, terrible, yet lovely, is in the attitude 
of a commonplace resentment. On one side 
of this figure are the elect ; on the other, the 
host of heaven ; they ought to have been what 
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the Christians called glorified bodies, floating 
onward with that everlasting light (I speak in 
the spirit of their faith) which had consumed 
their mortal veil. They are in fact very ordi- 
nary people. Below is the ideal purgatory, I 
imagine, in mid-air, in the shape of spirits, 
some of whom demons are dragging down, 
others falling as it were by their own weight, 
others half suspended in that Mahomet-coffin 
kind of attitude which most moderate Chris- 
tians, I believe, expect to assume. Every step 
toward hell approximates to the region of the 
artist's exclusive power. There is great imag- 
ination in many of the situations of these 
unfortunate spirits. But hell and death are 
his real sphere. The bottom of the picture is 
divided by a lofty rock, in which there is a 
cavern whose entrance is thronged by devils, 
some coming in with spirits, some going out 
for prey. The blood-red light of the fiery 
abyss glows through their dark forms. On 
one side are the devils in all hideous forms, 
struggling with the damned, who have received 
their sentence at the Redeemer's throne, and 
chained in all forms of agony by knotted ser- 
pents, and writhing on the crags in all variety 
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of torture. On the other, are the dead coming 
out of their graves, horrible forms. Such is 
the famous " Day of Judgment " of Michael 
Angelo; a kind of "Titus Andronicus " in 
painting, but the author surely no Shakespeare. 
The other paintings are one or two of Raphael 
or his pupils, very sweet and lovely : a " Da- 
nae," of Titian, a picture, the softest and 
most voluptuous form, with languid and up- 
lifted eyes, and warm yet passive limbs; a 
" Maddalena," by Guido, with dark-brown hair, 
and dark-brown eyes, and an earnest, soft, 
melancholy look ; and some excellent pictures, 
in point of execution, by Annibal Carracci. 
None others worth a second look. Of the 
gallery of statues I cannot speak. They re- 
quire a volume, not a letter. Still less, what 
can I do at Rome ? 

Most faithfully yours, 

p. b. s. 




Shelley's Letters 
XXIII. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Rome, 23d March, 1819. 
My dear Peacock : — I wrote to you the 
day before our departure from Naples. We 
came by slow journeys, with our own horses, 
to Rome, resting one day at Mola di Gaeta, 
at the inn called Villa di Cicerone, from being 
built on the ruins of his villa, whose immense 
substructions overhang the sea, and are scat- 
tered among the orange-groves. Nothing can 
be lovelier than the scene from the terraces of 
the inn. On one side precipitous mountains, 
whose bases slope into an inclined plane of 
olive and orange copses, the latter forming, as 
it were, an emerald sky of leaves, starred with 
innumerable globes of their ripening fruit, 
whose rich splendour contrasted with the deep 
green foliage ; on the other the sea, bounded 
on one side by the antique town of Gaeta, and 
on the other by what appears to be an island, 
the promontory of Circe. From Gaeta to 
Terracina the whole scenery is of the most 
sublime character. At Terracina precipitous 
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conical crags of immense height shoot into the 
sky and overhang the sea. At Albano we 
arrived again in sight of Rome. Arches after 
arches in unending lines stretching across the 
uninhabited wilderness, the blue defined lines 
of the mountains seen between them ; masses 
of nameless ruin standing like rocks out of the 
plain ; and the plain itself, with its billowy and 
unequal surface, announced the neighbourhood 
of Rome. And what shall I say to you about 
Rome ? If I speak of the inanimate ruins, 
the rude stones piled upon stones, which are 
the sepulchres of the fame of those who once 
arrayed them with the beauty which has faded, 
will you believe me insensible to the vital, the 
almost breathing creations of genius yet sub- 
sisting in their perfection ? What has become, 
you will ask, of the Apollo, the Gladiator, or 
the Venus of the Capitol? What of the 
Apollo di Belvedere, the Laocoon ? What of 
Raphael and Guido ? These things are best 
spoken of when the mind has drunk in the 
spirit of their forms ; and little indeed can I, 
who must devote no more than a few months 
to the contemplation of them, hope to know 
or feel of their profound beauty. 

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I think I told you of the Coliseum, and its 
impressions on me on my first visit to this city. 
The next most considerable relic of antiquity, 
considered as a ruin, is the Thermae of Cara- 
calla. These consist of six enormous cham- 
bers, above two hundred feet in height, and 
each enclosing a vast space like that of a field. 
There are, in addition, a number of towers and 
labyrinthine recesses, hidden and woven over 
by the wild growth of weeds and ivy. Never 
was any desolation more sublime and lovely. 
The perpendicular wall of ruin is cloven into 
steep ravines filled up with flowering shrubs, 
whose thick twisted roots are knotted in the 
rifts of the stones. At every step the aerial 
pinnacles of shattered stone group into new 
combinations of effect, and tower above the 
lofty yet level walls, as the distant mountains 
change their aspect to one travelling rapidly 
along the plain. The perpendicular walls re- 
semble nothing more than that cliff of Bisham 
Wood, that is overgrown with wood, and yet 
is stony and precipitous. You know the one 
I mean ; not the chalk-pit, but the spot that 
has the pretty copse of fir-trees and privet- 
bushes at its base, and where Hogg and I 

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scrambled up, and you, to my infinite discon- 
tent, would go home. These walls surround 
green and level spaces of lawn, on which some 
elms have grown, and which are interspersed 
toward their skirts by masses of the fallen ruin, 
overtwined with the broad leaves of the creep- 
ing weeds. The blue sky canopies it, and is 
as the everlasting roof of these enormous halls. 
But the most interesting effect remains. In 
one of the buttresses, that supports an im- 
mense and lofty arch, which " bridges the very 
winds of heaven," are the crumbling remains 
of an antique winding staircase, whose sides are 
open in many places to the precipice. This 
you ascend, and arrive on the summit of these 
piles. There grow on every side thick en- 
tangled wildernesses of myrtle, and the myrle- 
tus, and bay, and the flowering laurustinus, 
whose white blossoms are just developed, the 
wild fig, and a thousand nameless plants sown 
by the wandering winds ; these woods are inter- 
sected on every side by paths, like sheep-tracks 
through the copse-wood of steep mountains, 
which wind to every part of the immense 
labyrinth. From the midst rise those pin- 
nacles and masses, themselves like mountains, 
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which have been seen from below. In one 
place you wind along a narrow strip of weed- 
grown ruin, on one side is the immensity of 
earth and sky, on the other a narrow chasm, 
which is bounded by an arch of enormous size, 
fringed by the many-coloured foliage and blos- 
soms, and supporting a lofty and irregular 
pyramid, overgrown like itself with the all- 
prevailing vegetation. Around rise other crags 
and other peaks, all arrayed, and the deformity 
of their vast desolation softened down, by the 
undecaying investiture of nature. Come to 
Rome. It is a scene by which expression is 
overpowered ; which words cannot convey. 
Still further, winding up one half of the shat- 
tered pyramids, by the path through the 
blooming copse-wood, you come to a little 
mossy lawn, surrounded by the wild shrubs ; 
it is overgrown with anemones, wallflowers, 
and violets, whose stalks pierce the starry 
moss, and with radiant blue flowers, whose 
names I know not, and which scatter through 
the air the divinest odour, which, as you recline 
under the shade of the ruin, produces sensations 
of voluptuous faintness, like the combinations 
of sweet music. The paths still wind on, 
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threading the perplexed windings, other laby- 
rinths, other lawns, and deep dells of wood, 
and lofty rocks, and terrific chasms. When I 
tell you that these ruins cover several acres, 
and that the paths above penetrate at least 
half their extent, your imagination will fill up 
all that I am unable to express of this astonish- 
ing scene. 

I speak of these things not in the order in 
which I visited them, but in that of the impres- 
sion which they made on me, or perhaps chance 
directs. The ruins of the ancient Forum are so 
far fortunate that they have not been walled up 
in the modern city. They stand in an open, 
lonesome place, bounded on one side by the 
modern city, and the other by the Palatine 
Mount, covered with shapeless masses of ruin. 
The tourists tell you all about these things, 
and I am afraid of stumbling on their language 
when I enumerate what is so well known. 
There remain eight granite columns of the 
Ionic order, with the entablature of the Tem- 
ple of Concord, founded by Camillus. I fear 
that the immense expense demanded by these 
columns forbids us to hope that they are the 
remains of any edifice dedicated by that most 
"5 



Shelley's Letters 

perfect and virtuous of men. It is supposed 
to have been repaired under the Eastern em- 
perors ; alas, what a contrast of recollections ! 
Near them stand three Corinthian fluted col- 
umns, which supported the angle of a temple ; 
the architrave and entablature are worked with 
delicate sculpture. Beyond, to the south, is 
another solitary column ; and still more dis- 
tant, three more, supporting the wreck of an 
entablature. Descending from the Capitol to 
the Forum, is the triumphal arch of Septimus 
Severus, less perfect than that of Constantine, 
though from its proportions and magnitude a 
most impressive monument. That of Con- 
stantine, or rather of Titus, — for the relief 
and sculpture, and even the colossal images of 
Dacian captives, were torn by a decree of the 
Senate from an arch dedicated to the latter, to 
adorn that of this stupid and wicked monster, 
Constantine, one of whose chief merits consists 
in establishing a religion, the destroyer of 
those arts which would have rendered so base 
a spoliation unnecessary, — is the most perfect. 
It is an admirable work of art. It is built of 
the finest marble, and the outline of the reliefs 
is in many parts as perfect as if just finished. 
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Four Corinthian fluted columns support, on 
each side, a bold entablature, whose bases are 
loaded with reliefs of captives in every attitude 
of humiliation and slavery. The compart- 
ments above express in bolder relief the en- 
joyment of success, — the conqueror on his 
throne or in his chariot, or nodding over the 
crushed multitudes, who writhe under his 
horses' hoofs, — as those below express the 
torture and abjectness of defeat. There are 
three arches whose roofs are panelled with 
fretwork, and their sides adorned with similar 
reliefs. The keystone of these arches is sup- 
ported each by two winged figures of Victory, 
whose hair floats on the wind of their own 
speed, and whose arms are outstretched, bear- 
ing trophies, as if impatient to meet. They 
look, as it were, borne from the subject ex- 
tremities of the earth, on the breath which is 
the exhalation of that battle and desolation, 
which it is their mission to commemorate. 
Never were monuments so completely fitted 
to the purpose for which they were designed, 
of expressing that mixture of energy and error 
which is called a triumph. 

I walk forth in the purple and golden light 
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of an Italian evening, and return by starlight 
or moonlight, through this scene. The elms 
are just budding, and the warm spring winds 
bring unknown odours, all sweet, from the 
country. I see the radiant Orion through the 
mighty columns of the Temple of Concord, 
and the mellow fading light softens down the 
modern buildings of the Capitol, the only ones 
that interfere with the sublime desolation of 
the scene. On the steps of the Capitol itself 
stand two colossal statues of Castor and Pollux, 
each with his horse, finely executed, though 
far inferior to those of Monte Cavallo, the cast 
of one of which you know we saw together in 
London. This walk is close to our lodging, 
and this is my evening walk. 

What shall I say of the modern city ? Rome 
is yet the capital of the world. It is a city of 
palaces and temples more glorious than those 
which any other city contains, and of ruins 
more glorious than they. Seen from any of the 
eminences that surround it, it exhibits domes 
beyond domes, and palaces and colonnades in- 
terminably, even to the horizon ; interspersed 
with patches of desert, and mighty ruins which 
stand girt by their own desolation, in the midst 
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of the fanes of living religions, and the habita- 
tions of living men, in sublime loneliness. St. 
Peter's is, as you have heard, the loftiest build- 
ing in Europe. Externally it is inferior in 
architectural beauty to St. Paul's, though not 
wholly devoid of it ; internally it exhibits little- 
ness on a large scale, and is in every respect 
opposed to antique taste. You know my pro- 
pensity to admire ; and I tried to persuade 
myself out of this opinion, in vain ; the more 
I see of the interior of St. Peter's the less im- 
pression as a whole does it produce on me. I 
cannot even think it lofty, though its dome is 
considerably higher than any hill within fifty 
miles of London ; and when one reflects, it is 
an astonishing monument of the daring energy 
of man. Its colonnade is wonderfully fine, and 
there are two fountains, which rise in spirelike 
columns of water to an immense height in the 
sky, and falling on the porphyry vases from 
which they spring, fill the whole air with a 
radiant mist, which at noon is thronged with 
innumerable rainbows. In the midst stands 
an obelisk. In front is the palace-like facade 
of St. Peter's, certainly magnificent ; and there 
is produced, on the whole, an architectural com- 
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bination unequalled in the world. But the 
dome of the temple is concealed, except at a 
very great distance, by the facade and the 
inferior part of the building, and that diaboli- 
cal contrivance they call an attic. 

The effect of the Pantheon is totally the 
reverse of that of St. Peter's. Though not a 
fourth part of the size, it is, as it were, the visi- 
ble image of the universe ; in the perfection 
of its proportions, as when you regard the 
unmeasured dome of heaven, the idea of mag- 
nitude is swallowed up and lost. It is open to 
the sky, and its wide dome is lighted by the 
ever-changing illumination of the air. The 
clouds of noon fly over it, and at night the 
keen stars are seen through the azure darkness, 
hanging immovably, or driving after the driv- 
ing moon among the clouds. We visited it 
by moonlight ; it is supported by sixteen col- 
umns, fluted and Corinthian, of a certain rare 
and beautiful yellow marble, exquisitely pol- 
ished, called here Giallo Antico. Above these 
are the niches ' for the statues of the twelve 

1 It has recently been proved that the Pantheon was originally 
intended for a colossal hot-air bath, and that these recesses were 
connected with the apparatus. 

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gods. This is the only defect of this sublime 
temple ; there ought to have been no interval 
between the commencement of the dome and 
the cornice, supported by the columns. Thus 
there would have been no diversion from the 
magnificent simplicity of its form. This im- 
provement is alone wanting to have completed 
the unity of the idea. 

The fountains of Rome are, in themselves, 
magnificent combinations of art, such as alone 
it were worth coming to see. That in the 
Piazza Navona, a large square, is composed of 
enormous fragments of rock, piled on each 
other, and penetrated as by caverns. This 
mass supports an Egyptian obelisk of immense 
height ; on the four corners of the rock recline, 
in different attitudes, colossal figures represent- 
ing the four divisions of the globe. The water 
bursts from the crevices beneath them. They 
are sculptured with great spirit; one impa- 
tiently tearing a veil from his eyes ; another 
with his hands stretched upwards. The Fon- 
tana di Trevi is the most celebrated, and is 
rather a waterfall than a fountain ; gushing out 
from masses of rock, with a gigantic figure of 
Neptune ; and below are two river gods, check- 
*3i 



Shelley's Letters 

ing two winged horses, struggling up from 
among the rocks and waters. The whole is not 
ill-conceived nor executed ; but you know not 
how delicate the imagination becomes by diet- 
ing with antiquity day after day. The only 
things that sustain the comparison are Raphael, 
Guido, and Salvator Rosa. 

The fountain on the Quirinal, or rather the 
group formed by the statues, obelisk, and the 
fountain, is, however, the most admirable of 
all. From the Piazza Quirinale, or rather 
Monte Cavallo, you see the boundless ocean 
of domes, spires, and columns which is the 
city Rome. On a pedestal of white marble rises 
an obelisk of red granite, piercing the blue sky. 
Before it is a vast basin of porphyry, in the 
midst of which rises a column of the purest 
water, which collects into itself all the over- 
hanging colours of the sky, and breaks them 
into a thousand prismatic hues and graduated 
shadows ; they fall together with its dashing 
water-drops into the outer basin. The elevated 
situation of this basin produces, I imagine, this 
effect of colour on each side. On an elevated 
pedestal stand the statues of Castor and Pollux, 
each in the act of taming his horse, which are 
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said, but I believe wholly without authority, 
to be the work of Phidias and Praxiteles. 
These figures combine the irresistible energy 
with the sublime and the perfect loveliness 
supposed to have belonged to their divine 
nature. The reins no longer exist, but the 
position of their hands and the sustained and 
calm command of their regard seem to require 
no mechanical aid to enforce obedience. The 
countenances at so great a height are scarcely 
visible, and I have a better idea of that of 
which we saw a cast together in London, than 
of the other. But the sublime and living 
majesty of their limbs and mien, the nervous 
and fiery animation of the horses they restrain, 
seen in the blue sky of Italy, and overlooking 
the city of Rome, surrounded by the light and 
the music of that crystalline fountain, no cast 
can communicate. 

These figures were found at the Baths of 
Constantine, but, of course, are of remote 
antiquity. I do not acquiesce, however, in the 
practice of attributing to Phidias, or Praxiteles, 
or Scopas, or some great master, any admirable 
work that may be found. We find little of 
what remained, and perhaps the works of these 
*33 



Shelley's Letters 

were such as greatly surpassed all that we 
conceive of most perfect and admirable in what 
little has escaped the deluge. If I am too 
jealous of the honour of the Greeks, our mas- 
ters and creators, the gods whom we should 
worship, pardon me. 

I have said what I feel without entering into 
any critical discussions of the ruins of Rome, 
and the mere outside of this inexhaustible mine 
of thought and feeling. Hobhouse, Eustace, 
and Forsyth will tell all the show-knowledge 
about it, "the common stuff of the earth.- ,, 
By the bye, Forsyth is worth reading, as I 
judge from a chapter or two I have seen. I 
cannot get the book here. 

I ought to have observed that the central 
arch of the triumphal arch of Titus yet sub- 
sists, more perfect in its proportions, they say, 
than any of a later date. This I did not 
remark. The figures of Victory, with unfolded 
wings, and each spurning back a globe with 
outstretched feet, are, perhaps, more beautiful 
than those on either of the others. Their lips 
are parted : a delicate mode of indicating the 
fervour of their desire to arrive at the destined 
resting-place, and to express the eager respira- 
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Shelley's Letters 

tion of their speed. Indeed, so essential to 
beauty were the forms expressive of the exer- 
cise of the imagination and the affections con- 
sidered by Greek artists, that no ideal figure 
of antiquity, not destined to some representa- 
tion directly exclusive of such a character, is 
to be found with closed lips. Within this 
arch are two panelled alto-relievos, one repre- 
senting a train of people bearing in procession 
the instruments of Jewish worship, among 
which is the holy candlestick with seven 
branches ; on the other, Titus standing in a 
quadriga, with a winged Victory. The group- 
ing of the horses, and the beauty, correctness, 
and energy of their delineation is remarkable, 
though they are much destroyed. 

p. b. s. 



XXIV. 

TO LEIGH HUNT 

Livorno, 27th September, 1819. 
My dear Friend : — We are now on the 
point of leaving this place for Florence, where 
we have taken pleasant apartments for six 
i35 



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months, which brings us to the ist of April; 
the season at which new flowers and new 
thoughts spring forth upon the earth and in 
the mind. What is then our destination is yet 
undecided. I have not yet seen Florence, ex- 
cept as one sees the outside of the streets; but 
its physiognomy indicates it to be a city which, 
though the ghost of a republic, yet possesses 
most amiable qualities. I wish you could 
meet us there in the spring, and we would try 
to muster up a " Lieta Brigata," which, leaving 
behind them the pestilence of remembered 
misfortunes, might act over again the pleasures 
of the interlocutors in Boccaccio. I have been 
lately reading this most divine writer. He is 
in a high sense of the word a poet, and his 
language has the rhythm and harmony of 
verse. I think him not equal certainly either 
to Dante or Petrarch, but far superior to Tasso 
and Ariosto, the children of a later and of a 
colder day. I consider the three first as the 
productions of the vigour of the infancy of a 
new nation, as rivulets from the same spring 
as that which fed the greatness of the republics 
of Florence and Pisa, and which checked the 
influence of the German emperors ; and from 
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Shelley's Letters 

which, through obscurer channels, Raphael 
and Michael Angelo drew the light and the 
harmony of their inspiration. When the sec- 
ond-rate poets of Italy wrote, the corrupting 
blight of tyranny was already hanging on 
every bud of genius. Energy and simplicity 
and unity of idea were no more. In vain do 
we seek in the finest passages of Ariosto and 
Tasso any expression which at all approaches 
in this respect to those of Dante and Petrarch. 
How much do I admire Boccaccio ! What de- 
scriptions of nature are those in his little intro- 
ductions to every new day ! It is the morning 
of life, stripped of that mist of familiarity which 
makes it obscure to us. Boccaccio seems to 
me to have possessed a deep sense of the fair 
ideal of human life, considered in its social 
relations. His more serious theories of love 
agree especially with mine. He often ex- 
presses things lightly, too, which have serious 
meanings of a very beautiful kind. He is a 
moral casuist, the opposite of the Christian, 
stoical, ready-made, and worldly system of 
morals. Do you remember one little remark, 
or rather maxim of his, which might do some 
good to the common narrow-minded concep- 
i37 



Shelley's Letters 

tions of love, " Bocca baciata non perde Ven- 
tura ; anzi rinnuova, come fa la luna ? " 

We expect Mary to be confined toward the 
end of October. The birth of a child will 
probably retrieve her from some part of her 
present melancholy depression. 

It would give me much pleasure to know 
Mr. Lloyd. Do you know, when I was in 
Cumberland, I got Southey to borrow a copy 
of Berkeley from him, and I remember ob- 
serving some pencil notes in it, probably 
written by Lloyd, which I thought particu- 
larly acute. One, especially, struck me as 
being the assertion of a doctrine of which 
even then I had long been persuaded, and on 
which I had founded much of my persuasions, 
as regarded the imagined cause of the universe, 
" Mind cannot create, it can only perceive." 
Ask him if he remembers having written it. 
Of Lamb you know my opinion, and you can 
bear witness to the regret which I felt when I 
learned that the calumny of an enemy had de- 
prived me of his society whilst in England. 
Oilier told me that the Quarterly are going 
to review me. I suppose it will be a pretty 

, and as I am acquiring a taste for humour 

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and drollery, I confess I am curious to see it. 
I have sent my cc Prometheus Unbound " to 
Peacock ; if you ask him for it he will show it 
you. I think it will please you. 

Whilst I went to Florence, Mary wrote, but 
I did not see her letter. Well, good-bye. 
Next Monday I shall write to you from 
Florence. Love to all. 

Most affectionately your friend, 

p. b. s. 



XXV. 

TO JOHN GISBORNE 

Florence, 16th November, 1819. 
My dear Sir : — I envy you the first read- 
ing of Theocritus. Were not the Greeks a 
glorious people ? What is there, as Job says 
of the Leviathan, like unto them ? If the 
army of Nicias had not been defeated under 
the walls of Syracuse ; if the Athenians had, 
acquiring Sicily, held the balance between 
Rome and Carthage, sent garrisons to the 
Greek colonies in the south of Italy, Rome 
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Shelley's Letters 

might have been all that its intellectual condi- 
tion entitled it to be, a tributary, not the con- 
queror of Greece ; the Macedonian power 
would never have attained to the dictatorship 
of the civilized states of the world. Who 
knows whether, under the steady progress 
which philosophy and social institutions would 
have made — for, in the age to which I refer, 
their progress was most rapid and secure — 
among a people of the most perfect physical 
organization, whether the Christian religion 
would have arisen, or the barbarians have over- 
whelmed the wrecks of civilization which had 
survived the conquest and tyranny of the 
Romans ? What, then, should we have been ? 
As it is, all of us who are worth anything 
spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, 
or expiating the mistakes of our youth. We 
are stuffed full of prejudices, and our natural 
passions are so managed, that if we restrain 
them we grow intolerant and precise, because 
we restrain them not according to reason, but 
according to error ; and if we do not restrain 
them, we do all sorts of mischief to ourselves 
and to others. Our imagination and under- 
standing are alike subjected to rules the most 
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absurd; so much for Theocritus and the 
Greeks. . . . 

Most faithfully your obliged, 

p. b. s. 



XXVI. 

TO LEIGH HUNT 

Florence, November, 1819. 

My dear Friend : — Two letters, both 
bearing date October 20, arrive on the same 
day — one is always glad of twins. 

We hear of a box arrived at Genoa with 
books and clothes ; it must be yours. Mean- 
while the babe is wrapt in flannel petticoats, 
and we get on with him as we can. He is 
small, healthy, and pretty. Mary is recovering 
rapidly. Marianne, I hope, is quite well. 

You do not tell me whether you have re- 
ceived my lines on the Manchester affair. 
They are of the exoteric species, and are meant, 
not for the Indicator, but the Examiner. I 
would send for the former, if you like, some 
letters on such subjects of art as suggest them- 
selves in Italy. Perhaps I will at a venture 
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send you a specimen of what I mean next post. 
I enclose you in this a piece for the Examiner ; 
or let it share the fate, whatever that fate may 
be, of the " Mask of Anarchy." 

I am sorry to hear that you have employed 
yourself in translating the "Aminta," though 
I doubt not it will be a just and beautiful 
translation. You ought to write Amintas. 
You ought to exercise your fancy in the per- 
petual creation of new forms of gentleness and 
beauty. 

With respect to translation, even I will not 
be seduced by it ; although the Greek plays, 
and some of the ideal dramas of Calderon, 
with which I have lately, and with inexpressi- 
ble wonder and delight, become acquainted, 
are perpetually tempting me to throw over 
their perfect and glowing forms the gray veil 
of my own words. And you know me too 
well to suspect that I refrain from a belief that 
what I could substitute for them would de- 
serve the regret which yours would, if sup- 
pressed. I have confidence in my moral 
sense alone ; but that is a kind of originality. 
I have only translated the " Cyclops " of Eu- 
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Shelley's Letters 

ripides when I could absolutely do nothing 
else, and the " Symposium " of Plato, which is 
the delight and astonishment of all who read 
it : I mean the original, or so much of the 
original as is seen in my translation, not the 
translation itself. 

I think I have had an accession of strength 
since my residence in Italy, though the disease 
itself in the side, whatever it may be, is not 
subdued. Some day we shall all return from 
Italy. I fear that in England things will be 
carried violently by the rulers, and they will 
not have learned to yield in time to the spirit 
of the age. The great thing to do is to hold 
the balance between popular impatience and 
tyrannical obstinacy ; to inculcate with fervour 
both the right of resistance and the duty of 
forbearance. You know my principles incite 
me to take all the good I can get in politics, for 
ever aspiring to something more. I am one of 
those whom nothing will fully satisfy, but who 
are ready to be partially satisfied in all that is 
practicable. We shall see. 

Give Bessy a thousand thanks from me for 
writing out in that pretty neat hand your kind 
i43 



Shelley's Letters 

and powerful defence. Ask what she would 
like best from Italian land. We mean to bring 
you all something, and Mary and I have been 
wondering what it shall be. Do you, each of 
you, choose. 

• •••••ee 

Adieu, my dear friend, 

Yours affectionately ever, 

P. B. S. 



XXVII. 

TO EDMUND OLLIER 

Pisa, 14th May, 1820. 

Dear Sir : — I reply to your letter by re- 
turn of post, to confirm what I said in a former 
letter respecting a new edition of the u Cenci," 
which ought, by all means, to be instantly 
urged forward. 

I see by your account that I have been 
greatly mistaken in my calculations of the 
profit of my writings. As to the trifle due to 
me, it may as well remain in your hands. 

As to the printing of the " Prometheus," be 
it as you will. But, in this case, I shall repose 
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on trust in your care respecting the correction 
of the press ; especially in the lyrical parts, 
where a minute error would be of much conse- 
quence. Mr. Gisborne will revise it ; he heard 
it recited, and will therefore more readily seize 
any error. 

If I had even intended to publish cc Julian 
and Maddalo " with my name, yet I would not 
print it with " Prometheus." It would not har- 
monize. It is an attempt in a different style, 
in which I am not yet sure of myself, a sermo 
pedestris way of treating human nature, quite 
opposed to the idealisms of that drama. If 
you print "Julian and Maddalo," I wish it to 
be printed in some unostentatious form, accom- 
panied with the fragment of cc Athanase," and 
exactly in the manner in which I sent it ; and I 
particularly desire that my name may not be 
annexed to the first edition of it, in any case. 

If cc Peter Bell " be printed — you can best 
judge if it will sell or no, and there would be 
no other reason for printing such a trifle — 
attend, I pray you, particularly to completely 
concealing the author; and for Emma read 
Betty, as the name of Peter's sister. Emma, 
I recollect, is the real name of a sister of a 
i45 



Shelley's Letters 

great poet who might be mistaken for Peter. 1 
I ought to say that I send you poems in a few 
posts, to print at the end of " Prometheus," 
better fitted for that purpose than any in your 
possession. 

Keats, I hope, is going to show himself a 
great poet ; like the sun to burst through the 
clouds, which, though dyed in the finest colours 
of the air, obscured his rising. The Gisbornes 
will bring me from you copies of whatever may 
be published when they leave England. 

Dear sir, 

Yours faithfully, 

P. B. Shelley. 

XXVI 1 1. 

TO THOMAS MEDWIN 

Pisa, 20th July, 1820. 

My dear Medwin : — I wrote to you a day 
or two ago at Geneva. I have since received 
your letter from the mountains. How much 

1 Oilier did not print " Peter Bell," and Shelley's injunction, 
being unknown to subsequent editors, was disregarded until Mr. 
Rossetti made the alteration in 1870. Shelley's delicacy is the 
more commendable, as Emma Hutchinson was only Words- 
worth's sister-in-law. 

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I envy you, or rather how much I sympathize 
in the delights of your wandering ! I have a 
passion for such expeditions, although partly 
the capriciousness of my health, and partly the 
want of the incitement of a companion, keep 
me at home. I see the mountains, the sky, 
and the trees from my windows, and recollect, 
as an old man does the mistress of his youth, 
the raptures of a more familiar intercourse, but 
without his regrets, for their forms are yet liv- 
ing in my mind. I hope you will not pass 
Tuscany, leaving your promised visit unpaid. 
I leave it to you to make the project of taking 
up your abode with such an animal of the 
other world as I am, agreeable to your friend, 
but Mrs. Shelley unites with me in assuring 
both yourself and him that, whatever else may 
be found deficient, a sincere welcome is at least 
in waiting for you. 

I am delighted with your approbation of my 
" Cenci," and am encouraged to wish to present 
you with " Prometheus Unbound," a drama 
also, but a composition of a totally different 
character. I do not know if it be wise to affect 
variety in compositions, or whether the attempt 
to excel in many ways does not debar from ex- 
i47 



Shelley's Letters 

cellence in one particular kind. " Prometheus 
Unbound " is in the merest spirit of ideal 
poetry, and not, as the name would indicate, a 
mere imitation of the Greek drama; nor, in- 
deed, if I have been successful, is it an imita- 
tion of anything. But you will judge. I hear 
it is just printed, and I probably shall receive 
copies from England before I see you. Your 
objection to the " Cenci," as to the introduc- 
tion of the name of God, is good, inasmuch 
as the play is addressed to a Protestant 
people ; but we Catholics speak eternally and 
familiarly of the first person of the Trinity, 
and, amongst us, religion is more interwoven 
with, and is less extraneous to, the system of 
ordinary life. As to Cenci's curse, I know 
not whether I can defend it or no. I wish I 
may be able ; and, as it often happens respect- 
ing the worst part of an author's work, it is a 
particular favourite with me. I prided myself, 
as since your approbation I hope that I had 
just cause to do, upon the two concluding 
lines of the play. I confess I cannot approve 
of the squeamishness which excludes the ex- 
hibition of such subjects from the scene, a 
squeamishness, the produce, as I firmly be- 
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Shelley's Letters 

lieve, of a lower tone of the public mind, and 
foreign to the majestic and confident wisdom 
of the golden age of our country. What think 
you of my boldness ? I mean to write a play, 
in the spirit of human nature, without prejudice 
or passion, entitled " Charles the First." So 
vanity intoxicates people ; but let those few 
who praise my verses, and in whose approba- 
tion I take so much delight, answer for the sin. 
I wonder what in the world the queen has 
done. . . . What silly stuff is this to employ 
a great nation about. I wish the king and 
the queen, like Punch and his wife, would 
fight out their disputes in person. . . . 
Your affectionate friend, 

p. b. s. 



XXIX. 

TO JOHN KEATS 

Pisa, 27th July, 1820. 

My dear Keats : — I hear with great pain 

the dangerous accident you have undergone, 

and Mr. Gisborne, who gives me the account 

of it, adds that you continue to wear a con- 

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Shelley's Letters 

sumptive appearance. This consumption is a 
disease particularly fond of people who write 
such good verses as you have done, and with 
the assistance of an English winter it can often 
indulge its selection. I do not think that 
young and amiable poets are bound to gratify 
its taste ; they have entered into no bond with 
the Muses to that effect. But seriously, for 
I am joking on what I am very anxious about, 
I think you would do well to pass the winter 
in Italy and avoid so tremendous an accident, 
and if you think it as necessary as I do, so 
long as you continue to find Pisa or its neigh- 
bourhood agreeable to you, Mrs. Shelley unites 
with myself in urging the request that you 
would take up your residence with us. You 
might come by sea to Leghorn (France is not 
worth seeing, and the sea is particularly good 
for weak lungs), which is within a few miles 
of us. You ought, at all events, to see Italy, 
and your health, which I suggest as a motive, 
may be an excuse to you. I spare declamation 
about the statues, and paintings, and ruins, 
and what is a greater piece of forbearance, 
about the mountains and streams, the fields, 
the colours of the sky, and the sky itself. 
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Shelley's Letters 

I have lately read your " Endymion " again, 
and even with a new sense of the treasure of 
poetry it contains, though treasures poured 
forth with indistinct profusion. This people 
in general will not endure, and that is the cause 
of the comparatively few copies which have 
been sold. I feel persuaded that you are 
capable of the greatest things, so you but will. 
I always tell Oilier to send you copies of my 
books. " Prometheus Unbound " I imagine 
you will receive nearly at the same time with 
this letter. The " Cenci " I hope you have 
already received ; it was studiously composed 
in a different style. 

" Below the good how far ! but far above the great ! " 

In poetry I have sought to avoid system 
and mannerism. I wish those who excel me 
in genius would pursue the same plan. 

Whether you remain in England, or journey 
to Italy, believe that you carry with you my 
anxious wishes for your health, happiness, and 
success, wherever you are, or whatever you 
undertake, and that I am, 

Yours sincerely, 

P. B. Shelley. 
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XXX. 

TO THE EDITOR OF THE " QUARTERLY 
REVIEW " 

Sir : — Should you cast your eye on the 
signature of this letter before you read the con- 
tents, you might imagine that they related to 
a slanderous paper which appeared in your 
Review some time since. I never notice anony- 
mous attacks. The wretch who wrote it has 
doubtless the additional reward of a conscious- 
ness of his motives, besides the thirty guineas 
a sheet or whatever it is that you pay him. 
Of course you cannot be answerable for all the 
writings which you edit, and I certainly bear 
you no ill-will for having edited the abuse to 
which I allude — indeed, I was too much 
amused by being compared to Pharaoh not 
readily to forgive editor, printer, publisher, 
stitcher, or any one, except the despicable 
writer, connected with something so exquisitely 
entertaining. Seriously speaking, I am not in 
the habit of permitting myself to be disturbed 
by what is said or written of me, though, I 
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dare say, I may be condemned sometimes 
justly enough. But I feel, in respect to the 
writer in question, that " I am there sitting, 
where he durst not soar." 

The case is different with the unfortunate 
subject of this letter, the author of " Endym- 
ion," to whose feelings and situation I entreat 
you to allow me to call your attention. I 
write considerably in the dark; but if it is 
Mr. GifFord that I am addressing, I am per- 
suaded that in an appeal to his humanity and 
justice, he will acknowledge the "fas ab hoste 
doceri." I am aware that the first duty of a 
reviewer is toward the public, and I am willing 
to confess that the " Endymion " is a poem 
considerably defective, and that, perhaps, it 
deserved as much censure as the pages of your 
Review record against it ; but, not to mention 
that there is a certain contemptuousness of 
phraseology from which it is difficult for a critic 
to abstain, in the review of " Endymion," I 
do not think that the writer has given it its 
due praise. Surely the poem, with all its faults, 
is a very remarkable production for a man of 
Keats's age, and the promise of ultimate excel- 
lence is such as has rarely been afforded even 
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Shelley's Letters 

by such as have afterward attained high literary 
eminence. Look at Book II., line 833, etc., 
and then Book III., line 113 to 120; read 
down that page, and then again from line 193, 
I could cite many other passages, to convince 
you that it deserved milder usage. Why it 
should have been reviewed at all, excepting 
for the purpose of bringing its excellencies into 
notice, I cannot conceive, for it was very little 
read, and there was no danger that it should 
become a model to the age of that false taste, 
with which I confess that it is replenished. 

Poor Keats was thrown into a dreadful state 
of mind by this review, which, I am persuaded, 
was not written with any intention of producing 
the effect, to which it has, at least, greatly 
contributed, of embittering his existence, and 
inducing a disease from which there are now 
but faint hopes of his recovery. The first 
effects are described to me to have resembled 
insanity, and it was by assiduous watching that 
he was restrained from effecting purposes of 
suicide. The agony of his sufferings at length 
produced the rupture of a blood-vessel in the 
lungs, and the usual process of consumption 
appears to have begun. He is coming to pay 

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me a visit in Italy ; but I fear that unless his 
mind can be kept tranquil, little is to be hoped 
from the mere influence of climate. 

But let me not extort anything from your 
pity. I have just seen a second volume, pub- 
lished by him evidently in careless despair. I 
have desired my bookseller to send you a copy, 
and allow me to solicit your especial attention 
to the fragment of a poem entitled " Hype- 
rion," the composition of which was checked 
by the review in question. The great propor- 
tion of this piece is surely in the very highest 
style of poetry. I speak impartially, for the 
canons of taste to which Keats has conformed 
in his other compositions are the very reverse 
of my own. I leave you to judge for yourself: 
it would be an insult to you to suppose that 
from motives however honourable you would 
lend yourself to a deception of the public. 




!55 



Shelley's Letters 



XXXI. 



TO JOHN GISBORNE 



Pisa, Oggi, November, 1820. 

My dear Sir : — I send you the " Phae- 
don " and Tacitus. I congratulate you on 
your conquest of the Iliad. You must have 
been astonished at the perpetually increasing 
magnificence of the last seven books. Homer 
there truly begins to be himself. The battle 
of the Scamander, "the funeral of Patroclus, and 
the high and solemn close of the whole bloody 
tale in tenderness and inexpiable sorrow, are 
wrought in a manner incomparable with any- 
thing of the same kind. The Odyssey is 
sweet, but there is nothing like this. 

I am bathing myself in the light and odour 
of the flowery and starry Autos. I have read 
them all more than once. Henry will tell you 
how much I am in love with Pacchiani. I 
suffer from my disease considerably. Henry 
will also tell you how much, and how whimsi- 
cally, he alarmed me last night. 
156 



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My kindest remembrances to Mrs. Gisborne, 
and best wishes for your health and happiness. 
Faithfully yours, p. b. s. 

I have a new Calderon coming from Paris. 



XXXII. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Pisa, 15th February, 1821. 

My dear Peacock: — The last letter I re- 
ceived from you, nearly four months from the 
date thereof, reached me by the boxes which 
the Gisbornes sent by sea. I am happy to 
learn that you continue in good external and 
internal preservation. I received at the same 
time your printed denunciations against general, 
and your written ones against particular, poetry ; 
and I agree with you as decidedly in the latter 
as I differ in the former. The man whose 
critical gall is not stirred up by such ottava 

rimas as 's may safely be conjectured to 

possess no gall at all. The world is pale with 

the sickness of such stuff. At the same time, 

your anathemas against poetry itself excited me 

i57 



Shelley's Letters 

to a sacred rage, or cacoethes scribendi l of vin- 
dicating the insulted Muses. I had the great- 
est possible desire to break a lance with you, 
within the lists of a magazine, in honour of 
my mistress Urania; but God willed that I 
should be too lazy, and wrested the victory 
from your hope : since first having unhorsed 
poetry, and the universal sense of the wisest 
in all ages, an easy conquest would have re- 
mained to you in me, the knight of the shield 
of shadow and the lance of gossamer. Be- 
sides, I was at that moment reading Plato's 
" Ion," which I recommend you to reconsider. 
Perhaps in the comparison of Platonic and 
Malthusian doctrines, the "mavis errare" of 
Cicero is a justifiable argument ; but I have a 
whole quiver of arguments on such a subject. 

Have you seen Godwin's answer to the 
apostle of the rich ? And what do you think 
of it? It has not yet reached me, nor has 
your box, of which I am in daily expectation. 

We are now in the crisis and point of expec- 
tation in Italy. The Neapolitan and Austrian 

1 " Peacock printed ' cacoethes ' for ' caloethes] apparently not 
perceiving Shelley's joke." — Forman. The allusion throughout 
is to Peacock's " Four Ages of Poetry," which called forth Shel- 
ley's " Defence." 

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Shelley's Letters 

armies are rapidly approaching each other, and 
every day the news of a battle may be expected. 
The former have advanced into the ecclesias- 
tical states, and taken hostages from Rome to 
assure themselves of the neutrality of that 
power, and appear determined to try their 
strength in open battle. I need not tell you 
how little chance there is that the new and un- 
disciplined levies of Naples should stand against 
a superior force of veteran troops. But the 
birth of liberty in nations abounds in examples 
of a reversal of the ordinary laws of calcula- 
tion : the defeat of the Austrians would be the 
signal of insurrection throughout all Italy. 

I am devising literary plans of some magni- 
tude. But nothing is more difficult and un- 
welcome than to write without a confidence of 
finding readers ; and if my play of the " Cenci " 
found none or few, I despair of ever producing 
anything that shall merit them. 

Among your anathemas of the modern at- 
tempts in poetry, do you include Keats's 
" Hyperion " ? I think it very fine. His other 
poems are worth little ; but if the " Hyperion " 
be not grand poetry, none has been produced 
by our contemporaries. 
J 59 



Shelley's Letters 

I suppose you are writing nothing but In- 
dian laws, etc. I have but a faint idea of your 
occupation ; but I suppose it has much to do 
with pen and ink. 

Mary desires to be kindly remembered to 
you ; and I remain, my dear Peacock, 
Yours very faithfully, 

P. B. Shelley. 



XXXIII. 

TO EDMUND OLLIER 

Pisa, 1 6th February, 1821. 

Dear Sir : — I send you three poems, 
" Ode to Naples," a sonnet, and a longer 
piece, entitled " Epipsychidion." The two 
former are my own ; and you will be so oblig- 
ing as to take the first opportunity of pub- 
lishing according to your own discretion. 

The longer poem, I desire, should not be 
considered as my own ; indeed, in a certain 
sense, it is a production of a portion of me 
already dead ; in this sense the advertisement 
is no fiction. It is to be published simply 
for the esoteric few; and I make its author 

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a secret, to avoid the malignity of those who 
turn sweet food into poison ; transforming all 
they touch into the corruption of their own 
natures. My wish with respect to it is, that it 
should be printed immediately in the simplest 
form, and merely one hundred copies : those 
who are capable of judging and feeling rightly 
with respect to a composition of so abstruse a 
nature, certainly do not arrive at that number 
— among those, at least, who would ever be 
excited to read an obscure and anonymous 
production ; and it would give me no pleasure 
that the vulgar should read it. If you have 
any bookselling reason against publishing so 
small a number as a hundred, merely distribute 
copies among those to whom you think the 
poetry would afford any pleasure, and send 
me, as soon as you can, a copy by the post. 
I have written it so as to give very little 
trouble, I hope, to the printer, or to the per- 
son who revises. I should be much obliged 
to you if you would take this office on your- 
self. 

Is there any expectation of a second edition 
of the " Revolt of Islam " ? I have many cor- 
rections to make in it, and one part will be 
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wholly remodelled. I am employed in high 
and new designs in verse ; but they are the 
labours of years, perhaps. 

We expect here every day the news of a 
battle between the armies of Austria and 
Naples. The latter have advanced upon 
Rome ; and the first affair will probably take 
place in the ecclesiastical states. You may 
imagine the expectation of all here. 

Pray send me news of my intellectual chil- 
dren. For " Prometheus," I expect and de- 
sire no great sale. The " Cenci " ought to 
have been popular. 

I remain, dear sir, 

Your very obedient servant, 

Percy B. Shelley. 



XXXIV. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Pisa, 2 1 st March, 1821. 
My dear Peacock : — I despatch by this 
post the first part of an essay intended to con- 
sist of three parts, which I design for an anti- 
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dote to your " Four Ages of Poetry." You 
will see that I have taken a more general view 
of what is poetry than you have, and will per- 
haps agree with several of my positions without 
considering your own touched. But read and 
judge; and do not let us imitate the great 
founders of the picturesque, Price and Payne 
Knight, who, like two ill-trained beagles, began 
snarling at each other when they could not catch 
the hare. 

I hear the welcome news of a box from Eng- 
land announced by Mr. Gisborne. How much 
new poetry does it contain? The Bavii and 
Maevii of the day are very fertile ; and I wish 
those who honour me with boxes would read 
and inwardly digest your " Four Ages of 
Poetry ; " for I had much rather, for my own 
private reading, receive political, geological, 
and moral treatises than this stuff in terza, 
ottava, and tremillesima rima whose earthly 
baseness has attracted the lightning of your 
undiscriminating censure upon the temple of 
immortal song. . . . 

Do you see much of Hogg now ? And the 
Boinvilles and Coulson ? Hunt I suppose 
not. And are you occupied as much as ever ? 
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Shelley's Letters 

We are surrounded here in Pisa by revolu- 
tionary volcanoes, which, as yet, give more 
light than heat ; the lava has reached Tuscany. 
But the news in the papers will tell you far 
more than it is prudent for me to say ; and for 
this once I will observe your rule of political 
silence. The Austrians wish that the Neapoli- 
tans and Piedmontese would do the same. 

We have seen a few more people than usual 
this winter, and have made a very interesting 
acquaintance with a Greek prince, 1 perfectly ac- 
quainted with ancient literature, and full of 
enthusiasm for the liberties and improvement 
of his country. Mary has been a Greek 
student for several months, and is reading 
" Antigone " with our turbaned friend, who, 
in return, is taught English. Claire has passed 
the Carnival at Florence, and has been preter- 
naturally gay. I have had a severe ophthalmia, 
and have read or written little this winter ; and 
have made acquaintance in an obscure convent 
with the only Italian 2 for whom I ever felt any 
interest. 

I want you to do something for me : that is, 

1 Prince Mavrocordato, to whom " Hellas " is dedicated. 

2 Emilia Viviani. 

164 



Shelley's Letters 

to get me two pounds' worth of Tassie's gems, 
in Leicester Square, the prettiest, according to 
your taste ; among them the head of Alex- 
ander ; and to get me two seals engraved and 
set, one smaller, and the other handsomer ; the 
device a dove with outspread wings, and this 
motto around it : 

fxavris eifjb ead\wv ayuvcov. 

Mary desires her best regards ; and I remain, 
my dear Peacock, ever most sincerely yours, 

p. b. s. 



XXXV. 

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE 

Bagni, 19 th July, 1821. 
My dearest Friends : — I am fully re- 
paid for the painful emotions from which such 
verses of my poem sprung, by your sympathy 
and approbation, which is all the reward I 
expect, as much as I desire. It is not for me 
to judge whether, in the high praise your feel- 
ings assign me, you are right or wrong. The 
poet and the man are two different natures ; 
165 



Shelley's Letters 

though they exist together, they may be uncon- 
scious of each other, and incapable of deciding 
on each other's powers and efforts by any 
reflex act. The decision of the cause, whether 
or no I am a poet, is removed from the present 
time to the hour when our posterity shall 
assemble ; but the court is a very severe one, 
and I fear that the verdict will be, "guilty, 
death ! " 

I shall be with you on the first summons. 
I hope that the time you have reserved for us, 
" this bank and shoal of time," is not so short 
as you once talked of. 

In haste, most affectionately yours, 

p. b. s. 



XXXVI. 

TO MRS. SHELLEY 

Ravenna, 7 th August, 1821. 
My dearest Mary : — I arrived last night 
at ten o'clock, and sat up talking with Lord 
Byron until five this morning. I then went 
to sleep, and now awake at eleven, and having 
despatched my breakfast as quick as possible, 
166 



Shelley's Letters 

mean to devote the interval till twelve, when 
the post departs, to you. 

Lord Byron is very well, and was delighted 
to see me. He has in fact completely recovered 
his health, and lives a life totally the reverse of 
that which he led at Venice. He has a per- 
manent sort of liaison with Contessa Guiccioli, 
who is now at Florence, and seems from her 
letters to be a very amiable woman. She is 
waiting there until something suitable shall be 
decided as to their emigration to Switzerland 
or stay in Italy ; which is yet undetermined on 
either side. She was compelled to escape from 
the papal territory in great haste, as measures 
had already been taken to place her in a con- 
vent, where she would have been unrelentingly 
confined for life. The oppression of the mar- 
riage contract, as existing in the laws and 
opinions of Italy, though less frequently exer- 
cised, is far severer than that of England. I 
tremble to think of what poor Emilia is 
destined to. 

Lord Byron had almost destroyed himself 

in Venice : his state of debility was such that 

he was unable to digest any food, he was 

consumed by hectic fever, and would speedily 

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Shelley's Letters 

have perished, but for this attachment, which 
has reclaimed him from the excesses into which 
he threw himself from carelessness and pride, 
rather than taste. Poor fellow ! He is now 
quite well, and immersed in politics and litera- 
ture. He has given me a number of the most 
interesting details on the former subject, but 
we will not speak of them in a letter. Fletcher 
is here ; and as if, like a shadow, he waxed 
and waned with the substance of his master, 
Fletcher also has recovered his good looks, 
and from amidst the unseasonable gray hairs, 
a fresh harvest of flaxen locks has put forth. 

We talked a great deal of poetry and such 
matters last night; and as usual differed, and 
I think more than ever. He affects to patron- 
ize a system of criticism fit for the production 
of mediocrity, and although all his fine poems 
and passages have been produced in defiance of 
this system, yet I recognize the pernicious 
effects of it in the " Doge of Venice," and it 
will cramp and limit his future efforts, however 
great they may be, unless he gets rid of it. I 
have read only parts of it, or rather he himself 
read them to me, and gave me the plan of the 
whole. . . . 

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Shelley's Letters 
XXXVII. 

TO MRS. SHELLEY 

Friday, ioth August, 1821. 

We ride out in the evening, through the 
pine forests which divide this city from the 
sea. Our way of life is this, and I have 
accommodated myself to it without much diffi- 
culty : Lord Byron gets up at two, break- 
fasts ; we talk, read, etc., until six ; then we 
ride, and dine at eight; and after dinner sit 
talking till four or five in the morning. I get 
up at twelve, and am now devoting the interval 
beween my rising and his, to you. 

Lord Byron is greatly improved in every 
respect, — in genius, in temper, in moral views, 
in health, in happiness. The connection with 
La Guiccioli has been an inestimable benefit to 
him. He lives with considerable splendour, 
but within his income, which is now about 
^4,000 a year, ^1,000 of which he devotes to 
purposes of charity. He has had mischievous 
passions, but these he seems to have subdued, 
and he is becoming, what he should be, a vir- 
169 



Shelley's Letters 

tuous man. The interest which he took in the 
politics of Italy, and the actions he performed 
in consequence of it, are subjects not fit to be 
written, but are such as will delight and sur- 
prise you. He is not yet decided to go to 
Switzerland, a place, indeed, little fitted for 
him : the gossip and the cabals of those angli- 
cized coteries would torment him, as they did 
before, and might exasperate him to a relapse 
of libertinism, which he says he plunged into 
not from taste, but despair. La Guiccioli and 
her brother, who is Lord Byron's friend and 
confidant, and acquiesces perfectly in her con- 
nection with him, wish to go to Switzerland ; 
as Lord Byron says, merely from the novelty 
of the pleasure of travelling. Lord Byron 
prefers Tuscany or Lucca, and is trying to 
persuade them to adopt his views. He has 
made me write a long letter to her to engage 
her to remain, an odd thing enough for an 
utter stranger to write on subjects of the utmost 
delicacy to his friend's mistress. But it seems 
destined that I am always to have some active 
part in everybody's affairs whom I approach. 
I have set down in lame Italian the strongest 
reasons I can think of against the Swiss emigra- 
170 



Shelley's Letters 

tion ; to tell you truth, I should be very glad 
to accept, as my fee, his establishment in Tus- 
cany. Ravenna is a miserable place ; the peo- 
ple are barbarous and wild, and their language 
the most infernal patois that you can imagine. 
He would be, in every respect, better among 
the Tuscans. . . . 

He has read to me one of the unpublished 
cantos of" Don Juan," I which is astonishingly 
fine. It sets him not only above, but far 
above, all the poets of the day ; every word has 
the stamp of immortality. I despair of rival- 
ling Lord Byron, as well I may, and there is 
no other with whom it is worth contending. 
This canto is in the style, but totally, and sus- 
tained with incredible ease and power, like the 
end of the second canto. There is not a word 
which the most rigid assertor of the dignity of 
human nature could desire to be cancelled. It 
fulfils, in a certain degree, what I have long 
preached of producing, something wholly new 
and relative to the age, and yet surpassingly 
beautiful. It may be vanity, but I think I see 
the trace of my earnest exhortations to him to 
create something wholly new. He has fin- 

1 The fifth ; see the next letter. 
171 



Shelley's Letters 

ished his " Life " up to the present time, and 
given it to Moore, with liberty for Moore to 
sell it at the best price he can get, with condi- 
tion that the bookseller shall publish it after 
his death. Moore has sold it to Murray for 
^2,000. I wish I had been in time to have 
interceded for a part of it for poor Hunt. I 
have spoken to him of Hunt, but not with a 
direct view of demanding a contribution ; and, 
though I am sure that if asked it would not be 
refused, yet there is something in me that 
makes it impossible. Lord Byron and I are 
excellent friends, and were I reduced to pov- 
erty, or were I a writer who had no claims to 
a higher station than I possess, or did I pos- 
sess a higher than I deserve, we should appear^ 
in all things as such, and I would freely ask 
him any favour. Such is not now the case. 
The daemon of mistrust and pride lurks be- 
tween two persons in our situation, poisoning 
the freedom of our intercourse. This is a tax, 
and a heavy one, which we must pay for being 
human. I think the fault is not on my side, 
nor is it likely, I being the weaker. I hope 
that in the next world these things will be 
better managed. What is passing in the heart 
172 



Shelley's Letters 

of another rarely escapes the observation of one 
who is a strict anatomist of his own. 

Write to me at Florence, where I shall 
remain a day at least, and send me letters, or 
news of letters. How is my little darling ? 
And how are you, and how do you get on 
with your book ? Be severe in your correc- 
tions, and expect severity from me, your 
sincere admirer. I flatter myself you have 
composed something unequalled in its kind, 
and that, not content with the honours of your 
birth and your hereditary aristocracy, you will 
add still higher renown to your name. Expect 
me at the end of my appointed time. I do 
not think I shall be detained. Is Claire with 
you, or is she coming ? Have you heard any- 
thing of my poor Emilia, from whom I got a 
letter the day of my departure, saying that her 
marriage was deferred for a very short time, on 
account of the illness of her sposo. How are 
the Williamses, and Williams especially ? Give 
my kindest love to them. 

Lord Byron has here splendid apartments in 

the palace of his mistress's husband, who is one 

of the richest men in Italy. She is divorced, 

with an allowance of 1,200 crowns a year, a 

i73 



Shelley's Letters 

miserable pittance from a man who has 120,000 
a year. Here are two monkeys, five cats, eight 
dogs, and ten horses, all of whom, except the 
horses, walk about the house like the masters 
of it. Tita the Venetian l is here, and operates 
as my valet; a fine fellow, with a prodigious 
black beard, and who has stabbed two or three 
people, and is the most good-natured looking 
fellow I ever saw. 

We have good rumours of the Greeks here, 
and a Russian war. I hardly wish the Rus- 
sians to take any part in it. My maxim is 
with iEschylus : 



" to dvo~o~e(3es — 
ixera p.ev irXeiova TiKrei, 
o~<peTepq, 5' emora yepvq.." 2 

1 There is an interesting account of Tita Falcieri in Laurie's 
" Sketches of Some Distinguished Anglo-Indians," from which it 
appears that, after the death of Byron, with whom he continued 
to the last, he was successively in the service of Hobhouse, Mr. 
Isaac Disraeli, and Lord Beaconsfield, who obtained for him the 
situation of messenger at the India House. He died in 1874. 
He is said to have had many anecdotes of Shelley, but to have 
been reticent about Byron. Perhaps his last master's " Venetia " 
owes something to him. 

2 These lines are from the "Agamemnon" of ^Eschylus, 
v. 728-730. They are expanded in the well-known quatrain in 
« Hellas " : 

174 



Shelley's Letters 

There is a Greek exercise for you. How 
should slaves produce anything but tyranny, 
even as the seed produces the plant? 
Adieu, dear Mary, 

Yours affectionately, 



XXXVIII. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Ravenna [ioth August, 1821]. 

My dear Peacock : — I received your last 
letter just as I was setting off from the Bagni 
on a visit to Lord Byron at this place. Many 
thanks for all your kind attention to my accursed 
affairs. . . . 

I have sent you by the Gisbornes a copy of 
the elegy on Keats. The subject, I know, will 
not please you ; but the composition of the 
poetry, and the taste in which it is written I 
do not think bad. You and the enlightened 
public will judge. Lord Byron is in excellent 

" Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind, 
The foul cubs like their parents are ; 
Their den is in the guilty mind, 

And Conscience feeds them with despair." 

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cue both of health and spirits. He has got rid 
of all those melancholy and degrading habits 
which he indulged at Venice. He lives with 
one woman, a lady of rank here, to whom he 
is attached, and who is attached to him, and is 
in every respect an altered man. He has 
written three more cantos of "Don Juan." I 
have yet only heard the fifth, and I think that 
every word of it is pregnant with immortality. 
I have not seen his late plays, except " Marino 
Faliero," which is very well, but not so tran- 
scendently fine as the " Don Juan." Lord 
Byron gets up at two. I get up — quite con- 
trary to my usual custom, but one must sleep 
or die, like Southey's sea-snake in Kehama — 
at twelve. After breakfast, we sit talking till 
six. From six till eight we gallop through the 
pine forests which divide Ravenna from the sea ; 
we then come home and dine, and sit up gossip- 
ing till six in the morning. I don't suppose 
this will kill me in a week or fortnight, but I 
shall not try it longer. Lord B.'s establish- 
ment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, 
eight enormous dogs, iivQ cats, an eagle, a 
crow, and a falcon ; and all these, except the 
horses, walk about the house, which every now 
176 



Shelley's Letters 

and then resounds with their unarbitrated quar- 
rels, as if they were the masters of it. Lord B. 
thinks you wrote a pamphlet signed "John 
Bull ; " ' he says he knew it by the style re- 
sembling " Melincourt," of which he is a great 
admirer. I read it and assured him that it 
could not possibly be yours. I write nothing, 
and probably shall write no more. It offends 
me to see my name classed among those who 
have no name. If I cannot be something 
better, I had rather be nothing . . . and the 
accursed cause, to the downfall of which I dedi- 
cated what powers I may have had, flourishes 
like a cedar and covers England with its boughs. 
My motive was never the infirm desire of fame ; 
and if I should continue an author, I feel that 
I should desire it. This cup is justly given to 
one only of an age ; indeed, participation would 
make it worthless ; and unfortunate they who 
seek it and find it not. 

I congratulate you, I hope I ought to do so, 
on your expected stranger. He is introduced 

1 « This production much excited Lord Byron's curiosity. In 
one of his letters to Mr. Murray he asks, ' Who the devil can 
have done this diabolically well-written letter?' and subsequently 
he is found resting his suspicion on one of his own most intimate 
personal friends." — " Works of Lord Byron" 1833, vol. xv.,p. 32. 
177 



Shelley's Letters 

into a rough world. My regards to Hogg, 
and Coulson if you see him. 

Ever most faithfully yours, 

p. b. s. 

After I have sealed my letter, I find that 
my enumeration of the animals in this Circaean 
palace was defective, and that in a material 
point. I have just met on the grand staircase 
five peacocks, two guinea-hens, and an Egyp- 
tian crane. I wonder who all these animals 
were, before they were changed into these 
shapes. 



XXXIX. 

TO MRS. SHELLEY 

Ravenna, 15th August, 1821. 
I went the other day to see Allegra J at her 
convent, and stayed with her about three hours. 
She is grown tall and slight for her age, and 
her face is somewhat altered. The traits have 
become more delicate, and she is much paler, 
probably from the effect of improper food. 

1 The daughter of Lord Byron and Miss Clairmont. 

178 



Shelley's Letters 

She yet retains the beauty of her deep blue 
eyes and of her mouth, but she has a contempla- 
tive seriousness which, mixed with her exces- 
sive vivacity, which has not yet deserted her, has 
a very peculiar effect in a child. She is under 
very strict discipline, as may be observed from 
the immediate obedience she accords to the 
will of her attendants. This seems contrary 
to her nature, but I do not think it has been 
obtained at the expense of much severity. 
Her hair, scarcely darker than it was, is beauti- 
fully profuse, and hangs in large curls on her 
neck. She was prettily dressed in white muslin, 
and an apron of black silk, with trousers. Her 
light and airy figure and her graceful motions 
were a striking contrast to the other children 
there. She seemed a thing of a finer and a 
higher order. At first she was very shy, but 
after a little caressing, and especially after I had 
given her a gold chain which I had bought at 
Ravenna for her, she grew more familiar, and 
led me all over the garden, and all over the 
convent, running and skipping so fast that I 
could hardly keep up with her. She showed 
me her little bed and the chair where she sat at 
dinner, and the carozzina in which she and her 
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Shelley's Letters 

favourite companions drew each other along 
a walk in the garden. I had brought her a 
basket of sweetmeats, and before eating any 
of them she gave her companions and each of 
the nuns a portion. This is not much like the 
old Allegra. I asked her what I should say 
from her to her mamma, and she said : 

" Che mi manda un bacio e un bel vestituro." 
" E come vuoi il vestituro sia fatto ? " 
" Tutto di seta e d' oro," was her reply. 
Her predominant foible seems the love of 
distinction and vanity, and this is a plant which 
produces good or evil, according to the gar- 
dener's skill. I then asked her what I should 
say to papa. cc Che venga farmi un visitino 
e che porta seco la mammina." Before I went 
away she made me run all over the convent, 
like a mad thing. The nuns, who were half 
in bed, were ordered to hide themselves, and 
on returning Allegra began ringing the bell 
which calls the nuns to assemble. The tocsin 
of the convent sounded, and it required all 
the efforts of the prioress to prevent the 
spouses of God from rendering themselves, 
dressed or undressed, to the accustomed signal. 
Nobody scolded her for these scappature, so I 
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Shelley's Letters 

suppose she is well treated, so far as temper is 
concerned. Her intellect is not much culti- 
vated. She knows certain orazioni by heart, 
and talks and dreams of Paradiso and all sorts 
of things, and has a prodigious list of saints, 
and is always talking of the Bambino. This 
will do her no harm, but the idea of bringing 
up so sweet a creature in the midst of such 
trash till sixteen ! 



XL. 



TO LEIGH HUNT 

Pisa, 26th August, 1 82 1. 
My dearest Friend : — Since I last wrote 
to you, I have been on a visit to Lord Byron 
at Ravenna. The result of this visit was a 
determination on his part to come and live at 
Pisa ; and I have taken the finest palace on 
the Lung' Arno for him. But the material 
part of my visit consists in a message which he 
desires me to give you, and which I think 
ought to add to your determination, for such 
a one I hope you have formed, of restoring 
your shattered health and spirits by a migration 
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Shelley's Letters 

to these " regions mild of calm and serene 
air." 

He proposes that you should come and go 
shares with him and me in a periodical work, 
to be conducted here ; in which each of the 
contracting parties should publish all their 
original compositions, and share the profits. 
He proposed it to Moore, but for some reason 
it was never brought to bear. There can be 
no doubt that the profits of any scheme in 
which you and Lord Byron engage must, 
from various, yet cooperating reasons, be very 
great. As for myself, I am, for the present, 
only a sort of link between you and him, until 
you can know each other and effectuate the 
arrangement ; since, to entrust you with a secret 
which, for your sake, I withhold from Lord 
Byron, nothing would induce me to share in 
the profits, and still less in the borrowed 
splendour of such a partnership. You and 
he, in different manners, would be equal, and 
would bring, in a different manner, but in the 
same proportion, equal stocks of reputation 
and success. Do not let my frankness with 
you, nor my belief that you deserve it more 
than Lord Byron, have the effect of deterring 
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Shelley's Letters 

you from assuming a station in modern litera- 
ture, which the universal voice of my con- 
temporaries forbids me either to stoop or to 
aspire to. I am, and I desire to be, nothing. 

I did not ask Lord Byron to assist me in 
sending a remittance for your journey ; because 
there are men, however excellent, from whom 
we would never receive an obligation, in the 
worldly sense of the word ; and I am as jealous 
for my friend as for myself. I, as you know, 
have it not : but I suppose that at last I shall 
make up an impudent face, and ask Horace 
Smith to add to the many obligations he has 
conferred on me. I know I need only ask. 

I think I have never told you how very much 
I like your " Amyntas ; " it almost reconciles me 
to translations. In another sense, I still demur. 
You might have written another such poem as 
the " Nymphs," with no great access of effort. 
I am full of thoughts and plans, and should 
do something if the feeble and irritable frame 
which encloses it was willing to obey the spirit. 
I fancy that then I should do great things. Be- 
fore this you will have seen " Adonais." Lord 
Byron, I suppose from modesty on account of 
his being mentioned in it, did not say a word of 
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Shelley's Letters 

" Adonais," though he was loud in his praise 
of "Prometheus," and, what you will not agree 
with him in, censure of the cc Cenci." Cer- 
tainly, if <c Marino Faliero " is a drama, the 
cc Cenci " is not : but that between ourselves. 
Lord Byron is reformed, as far as gallantry 
goes, and lives with a beautiful and sentimental 
Italian lady, who is as much attached to him as 
may be. I trust greatly to his intercourse with 
you, for his creed to become as pure as he 
thinks his conduct is. He has many generous 
and exalted qualities, but the canker of aris- 
tocracy wants to be cut out. 



XLI. 

TO EDMUND OLLIER 

Pisa, 25th September, 1821. 
Dear Sir : — It will give me great pleasure 
if I can arrange the affair of Mrs. Shelley's 
novel with you to her and your satisfaction. 
She has a specific purpose in the sum which 
she instructed me to require ; x and, although 

1 To discharge a liability of Godwin's. 
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Shelley's Letters 

this purpose could not be answered without 
ready money, yet I should find means to an- 
swer her wishes in that point, if you could 
make it convenient to pay one-third at Christ- 
mas, and give bills for the other two-thirds at 
twelve and eighteen months. It would give 
me peculiar satisfaction that you, rather than 
any other person, should be the publisher of 
this work ; it is the product of no slight labour, 
and, I flatter myself, of no common talent. I 
doubt not it will give no less credit than it will 
receive from your names. I trust you know 
me too well to believe that my judgment delib- 
erately given in testimony of the value of any 
production is influenced by motives of interest 
or partiality. 

The romance is called cc Castruccio, Prince 
of Lucca," x and is founded, not upon the novel 
of Macchiavelli under that name, which sub- 
stitutes a childish fiction for the far more 
romantic truth of history, but upon the actual 
story of his life. He was a person who, from an 
exile and an adventurer, after having served in 
the wars of England and Flanders in the reign 
of our Edward the Second, returned to his 

1 It was eventually published under the title of " Valperga." 

185 



Shelley's Letters 

native city, and liberating it from its tyrants, 
became himself its tyrant, and died in the full 
splendour of his dominion, which he had ex- 
tended over the half of Tuscany. He was a 
little Napoleon, and, with a dukedom instead 
of an empire for his theatre, brought upon the 
same all the passions and the errors of his anti- 
type. The chief interest of the romance rests 
upon Euthanasia, his betrothed bride, whose 
love for him is only equalled by her enthusiasm 
for the liberty of the republic of Florence, 
which is in some sort her country, and for that 
of Italy, to which Castruccio is a devoted 
enemy, being an ally of the party of the Em- 
peror. This character is a masterpiece ; and 
the keystone of the drama, which is built up 
with admirable art, is the conflict between these 
passions and these principles. Euthanasia, the 
last survivor of a noble house, is a feudal 
countess, and her castle is the scene of the ex- 
hibition of the knightly manners of the time. 
The character of Beatrice, the prophetess, can 
only be done justice to in the very language 
of the author. I know nothing in Walter 
Scott's novels which at all approaches to the 
beauty and the sublimity of this — creation, I 
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Shelley's Letters 

may say, for it is perfectly original, and, al- 
though founded upon the ideas and manners 
of the age which is represented, is wholly with- 
out a similitude in any fiction I ever read. 
Beatrice is in love with Castruccio, and dies ; 
for the romance, although interspersed with 
much lighter matter, is deeply tragic, and the 
shades darken and gather as the catastrophe 
approaches. All the manners, customs, opin- 
ions of the age are introduced ; the supersti- 
tions, the heresies, and the religious persecutions 
are displayed ; the minutest circumstance of 
Italian manners in that age is not omitted ; and 
the whole seems to me to constitute a living 
and moving picture of an age almost forgotten. 
The author visited the scenery which she de- 
scribes in person ; and one or two of the 
inferior characters are drawn from her own 
observation of the Italians, for the national 
character shows itself still in certain instances 
under the same forms as it wore in the time 
of Dante. The novel consists, as I told you 
before, of three volumes, each at least equal to 
one of the " Tales of My Landlord," and they 
will be very soon ready to be sent. In case 
you should accept the present offer, I will 
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Shelley's Letters 

make one observation which I consider of 
essential importance. It ought to be printed 
in half-volumes at a time, and sent to the 
author for her last corrections by the post. It 
may be printed on thin paper like that of this 
letter, and the expense shall fall upon me. 
Lord Byron has his works sent in this manner ; 
and no person, who has either fame to lose or 
money to win, ought to publish in any other 
manner. 

By the bye, how do I stand with regard to 
these two great objects of human pursuit ? I 
once sought something nobler and better than 
either ; but I might as well have reached at the 
moon, and now, finding that I have grasped 
the air, I should not be sorry to know what 
substantial sum, especially of the former, is in 
your hands on my account. The gods have 
made the reviewers the almoners of this worldly 
dross, and I think I must write an ode to flatter 
them to give me some, if I would not that they 
put me off with a bill on posterity, which when 
my ghost shall present, the answer will be "No 
effects.' , 

" Charles the First " is conceived, but not 
born. Unless I am sure of making something 
1 88 



Shelley's Letters 

good the play will not be written. Pride, that 
ruined Satan, will kill " Charles the First," for 
his midwife would only be less than him whom 
thunder has made greater. I am full of great 
plans ; and, if I should tell you them, I should 
add to the list of these riddles. 

I have not seen Mr. Procter's cc Mirandola." 
Send it to me in the box, and pray send me 
the box immediately. It is of the utmost 
consequence; and, as you are so obliging as 
to say you will not neglect my commissions, 
pray send this without delay. I hope it is 
sent, indeed, and that you have recollected to 
send me several copies of " Prometheus," the 
" Revolt of Islam," and the " Cenci," etc., as 
I requested you. Is there any chance of a 
second edition of the " Revolt of Islam " ? 
I could materially improve that poem on re- 
vision. The "Adonais," in spite of its mysti- 
cism, is the least imperfect of my compositions, 
and, as the image of my regret and honour for 
poor Keats, I wish it to be so. I shall write 
to you, probably, by next post on the subject 
of that poem, and should have sent the prom- 
ised criticism for the second edition had I not 
mislaid, and in vain sought for, the volume 
189 



Shelley's Letters 

that contains " Hyperion/' Pray give me 
notice against what time you want the second 
part of my " Defence of Poetry." I give you 
this " Defence/' and you may do what you will 
with it. 

Pray give me an immediate answer about 
the novel. 

I am, my dear sir, 

Your very obliged servant, 

Percy B. Shelley. 

I ought to tell you that the novel has not 
the smallest tincture of any peculiar theories in 
politics or religion. 



XLII. 

TO JOHN GISBORNE 

Pisa, 2 2d October, 1821. 
My dear Gisborne : — At length the post 
brings a welcome letter from you, and I am 
pleased to be assured of your health and safe 
arrival. I expect with interest and anxiety the 
intelligence of your progress in England, and 
how far the advantages there compensate the 
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Shelley's Letters 

loss of Italy. I hear from Hunt that he is 
determined on emigration, and if I thought 
the letter would arrive in time, should beg 
you to suggest some advice to him. But you 
ought to be incapable of forgiving me the fact 
of depriving England of what it must lose 
when Hunt departs. 

Did I tell you that Lord Byron comes to 
settle at Pisa, and that he has a plan of writing 
a periodical work in conjunction with Hunt ? 
His house, Madame Felichi's, is already taken 
and fitted up for him, and he has been expected 
every day these six weeks. La Guiccioli, who 
awaits him impatiently, is a very pretty, senti- 
mental, innocent Italian, who has sacrificed an 
immense fortune for the sake of Lord Byron, 
and who, if I know anything of my friend, will 
hereafter have plenty of leisure and opportunity 
to repent her rashness. Lord Byron is, how- 
ever, quite cured of his gross habits, as far as 
habits ; the perverse ideas on which they were 
formed are not yet eradicated. 

We have furnished a house at Pisa, and 

mean to make it our headquarters. I shall 

get all my books out, and entrench myself like 

a spider in a web. If you can assist Peacock 

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Shelley's Letters 

in sending them to Leghorn, you would do 
me an especial favour ; but do not buy me 
Calderon, " Faust," or Kant, as Horace Smith 
proposes to send them me from Paris, where 
I suppose you had not time to procure them. 
Any other books you or Henry think would 
accord with my design, Oilier will furnish you 
with. 

I should like very much to hear what is said 
of my " Adonais," and you would oblige me 
by cutting out, or making Oilier cut out, any 
respectable criticism on it, and sending it me ; 
you know I do not mind a crown or two in 
postage. The " Epipsychidion " is a mystery ; 
as to real flesh and blood, you know that I do 
not deal in those articles ; you might as well 
go :o a gin-shop for a leg of mutton as expect 
anything human or earthly from me. I desired 
Oilier not to circulate this piece except to the 
avveroiy and even they, it seems, are inclined to 
approximate me to the circle of a servant 
girl and her sweetheart. 1 But I intend to 
write a symposium of my own to set all this 
right. 

I am just finishing a dramatic poem called 

1 An allusion to Hazlitt's " Liber Amoris." 
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Shelley's Letters 

cc Hellas," * upon the contest now raging in 
Greece, a sort of imitation of the " Persae " of 
iEschylus, full of lyrical poetry. I try to be 
what I might have been, but am not success- 
ful. I find that — I dare say I shall quote 
wrong — 

** Den herrlichsten, den sich der Geist empfangt, 
Drangt immer fremd und fremder Stoff sich an." 

The Edinburgh Review lies. Godwin's an- 
swer to Malthus is victorious and decisive ; 
and that it should not be generally acknowl- 
edged as such, is full evidence of the influence 
of successful evil and tyranny. What Godwin 
is, compared to Plato and Lord Bacon, we 
well know : but compared with these miserable 
sciolists, he is a vulture to a worm. 

I read the Greek dramatists and Plato forever. 
You are right about " Antigone ; " how sublime 
a picture of a woman ! and what think you of 
the choruses, and especially of the lyrical com- 
plaints of the godlike victim ? and the menaces 
of Tiresias and their rapid fulfilment ? Some 
of us have, in a prior existence, been in love 

1 " The title was suggested by Williams, who transcribed the 
poem for the press." — Forman. 

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Shelley's Letters 

with an Antigone, and that makes us find no 
full content in any mortal tie. As to books, 
I advise you to live near the British Museum 
and read there. I have read, since I saw you, 
the " Jungfrau von Orleans " of Schiller, a fine 
play if the fifth act did not fall off. Some 
Greeks, escaped from the defeat in Wallachia, 
have passed through Pisa to reembark at 
Leghorn for the Morea, and the Tuscan 
Government allowed them, during their stay 
and passage, three lire each per day and their 
lodging; that is good. Remember me and 
Mary most kindly to Mrs. Gisborne and 
Henry, and believe me, 

Yours most affectionately, 

P. B. S. 



XLIII. 

TO JOSEPH SEVERN 

Pisa, 29th November, 1821. 

Dear Sir : — I send you the elegy on poor 

Keats, and I wish it were better worth your 

acceptance. You will see, by the preface, that 

it was written before I could obtain any par- 

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Shelley's Letters 

ticular account of his last moments ; all that 
I still know was communicated to me by a 
friend who had derived his information from 
Colonel Finch ; I have ventured to express, as 
I felt, the respect and admiration which your 
conduct toward him demands. 

In spite of his transcendent genius, Keats 
never was, nor ever will be, a popular poet; 
and the total neglect and obscurity in which 
the astonishing remnants of his mind still 
lie, was hardly to be dissipated by a writer who, 
however he may differ from Keats in more 
important qualities, at least resembles him 
in that accidental one, a want of popularity. 

I have little hope, therefore, that the poem 
I send you will excite any attention, nor do I 
feel assured that a critical notice of his writings 
would find a single reader. But for these 
considerations, it had been my intention to 
have collected the remnants of his compositions, 
and to have published them with a life and 
criticism. Has he left any poems or writings 
of whatsoever kind, and in whose possession 
are they ? Perhaps you would oblige me by 
information on this point. 

Many thanks for the picture you promise 
i9S 



Shelley's Letters 

me : I shall consider it among the most sacred 
relics of the past. 

For my part, I little expected, when I last 
saw Keats at my friend Leigh Hunt's, that I 
should survive him. 

Should you ever pass through Pisa I hope 
to have the pleasure of seeing you, and of cul- 
tivating an acquaintance into something pleas- 
ant, begun under such melancholy auspices. 

Accept, my dear sir, the assurance of my 
sincere esteem, and believe me, 

Your most sincere and faithful servant, 

Percy B. Shelley. 



XLIV. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Pisa, January [n, 1822]. 

My dear Peacock : — I am still at Pisa, 
where I have at length fitted up some rooms 
at the top of a lofty palace that overlooks the 
city and the surrounding region, and have col- 
lected books and plants about me, and estab- 
lished myself for some indefinite time, which, 
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Shelley's Letters 

if I read the future, will not be short. I wish 
you to send my books by the very first oppor- 
tunity, and I expect in them a great augmenta- 
tion of comfort. Lord Byron is established 
here, and we are constant companions. No 
small relief this, after the dreary solitude of 
the understanding and the imagination in 
which we passed the first years of our expatria- 
tion, yoked to all sorts of miseries and dis- 
comforts. 

Of course you have seen his last volume, 
and if you before thought him a great poet, 
what is your opinion now that you have read 
" Cain " ? The " Foscari " and " Sardanapa- 
lus " I have not seen ; but as they are in the 
style of his later writings, I doubt not they are 
very fine. We expect Hunt here every day, 
and remain in great anxiety on account of the 
heavy gales which he must have encountered 
at Christmas. Lord Byron has fitted up the 
lower apartments of his palace for him, and 
Hunt will be agreeably surprised to find a 
commodious lodging prepared for him after 
the fatigues and dangers of his passage. I 
have been long idle, and, as far as writing 
goes, despondent ; but I am now engaged on 
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Shelley's Letters 

" Charles the First," and a devil of a nut it is 
to crack. 

Mary and Clara, who is not with us just at 
present, are well, and so is our little boy, the 
image of poor William. We live as usual, 
tranquilly. I get up, or at least wake, early ; 
read and write till two ; dine, go to Lord 
Byron's, and ride or play at billiards as the 
weather permits ; and sacrifice the evening 
either to light books or whoever happens to 
drop in. Our furniture, which is very neat, 
cost fewer shillings than that at Marlow did 
pounds sterling ; and our windows are full of 
plants which turn the sunny winter into spring. 1 
My health is better, my cares are lighter ; and 
although nothing will cure the consumption 
of my purse, yet it drags on a sort of life in 
death, very like its master, and seems, like 
Fortunatus's, always empty yet never quite 
exhausted. You will have seen my cc Adonais," 
and perhaps my " Hellas," and I think, what- 
ever you may judge of the subject, the compo- 
sition of the first poem will not wholly displease 
you. I wish I had something better to do 

1 These unquestionably inspired the "Magic Plant" and the 
" Zucca," written about this time. 
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Shelley's Letters 

than furnish this jingling food for the hun- 
ger of oblivion, called verse, but I have not ; 
and since you give me no encouragement about 
India/ I cannot hope to have. 

How is your little star, and the heaven 
which contains the milky way in which it 
glitters ? 

Adieu. Yours ever most truly, 



XLV. 

TO JOHN GISBORNE 

Pisa, January, 1822. 
. . . One thing I rejoice to hear, that your 
health is better. So is mine ; but my mind is 
like an overworked race-horse put into a 
hackney-coach. What think you of Lord 
Byron now ? Space wondered less at the swift 
and fair creations of God, when he grew weary 
of vacancy, than I at this spirit of an angel in 
the mortal paradise of a decaying body. So I 

1 " He had expressed a desire to be employed politically at 
the court of a native prince, and I had told him that such em- 
ployment was restricted to the regular service of the East India 
Company." — Peacock. 

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Shelley's Letters 

think, let the world envy while it admires, as 
it may. 

We have just got the etchings of " Faust ; " 
the painter is worthy of Goethe. The meet- 
ing of him and Margaret is wonderful. It 
makes all the pulses of my head beat ; those of 
my heart have been quiet long ago. The 
translations, both these and in Blackwood, are 
miserable. Ask Coleridge l if their stupid 
misintelligence of the deep wisdom and har- 
mony of the author does not spur him to 
action. You will have heard of the Hunts, 
and of all my perplexities about them. The 
Williamses are well ; Mrs. Williams more 
amiable and beautiful than ever, and a sort of 
spirit of embodied peace in the midst of our 
circle of tempests. So much for first impres- 
sions ! 

1 Coleridge told Mrs. Gisborne that he feared a faithful trans- 
lation of " Faust " would not be tolerated, and that he would not 
mutilate it. 




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Shelley's Letters 
XLVI. 

TO LEIGH HUNT 

Pisa, January 25, 1822. 
My dearest Friend: — I send you by 
return of post ^150, within thirty or forty of 
what I had contrived to scrape together. How 
I am to assemble the constituents of such a 
sum again I do not at present see ; but do not 
be disheartened, we will all put our shoulders 
to the wheel. Let me not speak of my own 
disappointment, which, great as it is at not 
seeing you here, is all swallowed up in sympa- 
thy with your present situation. Our anxiety 
during the continuance of the succession of 
tempests which one morning seemed to rain 
lightnings into Pisa, and amongst others struck 
the palace adjoining Lord Byron's, and turned 
the Arno into a raging sea, was, as you may 
conceive, excessive, and our first relief was 
your letter from Ramsgate. Between the in- 
terval of that and your letter of December 28 th, 
we were in daily expectation of your arrival. 
Yesterday arrived that dated January 6th. 
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Shelley's Letters 

Lord Byron had assigned you a portion of 
his palace, and Mary and I had occupied our- 
selves in furnishing it. Everything was al- 
ready provided except bedding, which could 
have been got in a moment, and which we 
thought it possible you might bring with you. 
We had hired a woman cook of the country 
for you, who is still with us. Lord Byron had 
kindly insisted upon paying the upholsterer's 
bill, with that sort of unsuspecting goodness 
which makes it infinitely difficult to ask him 
for more. Past circumstances between Lord 
Byron and me render it impossible that I 
should accept any supply from him for my 
own use, or that I should ask it for yours if 
the contribution could be supposed in any 
manner to relieve me, or to do what I could 
otherwise have done. It is true that I cannot, 
but how is he to be assured of this ? One 
thing strikes me as possible. I am at present 
writing the drama of " Charles the First," a 
play which, if completed according to my 
present idea, will hold a higher rank than the 
" Cenci " as a work of art. Would no book- 
seller give me X x 5° or £ <1QO f° r tne copy- 
right of this play ? You know best how my 

202 



Shelley's Letters 

writings sell, whether at all or not : after they 
failed of making the sort of impression on men 
that I expected, I have never until now thought 
it worth while to inquire. The question is now 
interesting to me, inasmuch as the reputation 
depending on their sale might induce a book- 
seller to give me such a sum for this play. 
Write to Allman, your bookseller, and tell 
him what I tell you of " Charles the First," 
and do not delay a post. I have a parcel of 
little poems also, the " Witch of Atlas," and 
some translations of Homer's hymns, the 
copyright of which I must sell. I offered 
the " Charles the First " to Oilier, and you 
had better write at the same time to learn his 
terms. Of course you will not delay a post in 
this. 

The evils of your remaining in England are 
inconceivably great if you ultimately determine 
upon Italy ; and in the latter case, the best 
thing you can do is, without waiting for the 
spring, to set sail with the very first ship you 
can. Debts, responsibilities, and expenses will 
enmesh you round about if you delay, and force 
you back into that circle from which I made a 
push to draw you. The winter, generally, is 
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Shelley's Letters 

not a bad time for sailing, but only that period 
which you selected, and another when the year 
approaches to the vernal equinox. You avoided, 
and, if you must still delay, will still avoid, the 
halcyon days of the Mediterranean. There is 
no serious danger in a cargo of gunpowder; 
hundreds of ships navigate these electrical seas 
with the freight without risk. Marianne would 
have been benefited, and would still benefit ex- 
ceedingly, by the Elysian temperature of the 
Mediterranean. 

Poor Marianne, how much I feel for her, 
and with what anxiety I expect your news of 
her health ! Were it not for the cursed neces- 
sity of rinding money, all considerations would 
be swallowed up in the thought of her ; and I 
should be delighted to think that she had 
obtained this interval of repose which now 
perplexes and annoys me. . . . 

Pray tell me in answer to this letter, unless 
you answer it in person, what arrangement you 
have made about the receipt of a regular income 
from the profits of the Examiner. You ought 
not to leave England without having the assur- 
ance of an independence in this particular ; as 
many difficulties have presented themselves to 
204 



Shelley's Letters 

the plan imagined by Lord Byron, which I 
depend upon you for getting rid of. And if 
there is time to write before you set off, pray 
tell me if Oilier has published " Hellas," and 
what effect was produced by " Adonais." My 
faculties are shaken to atoms, and torpid. I 
can write nothing ; and if " Adonais " had no 
success, and excited no interest, what incentive 
can I have to write? As to reviews, don't 
give Gifford, or his associate Hazlitt, a stripe 
the more for my sake. The man must be 
enviably happy whom reviews can make mis- 
erable. I have neither curiosity, interest, pain, 
nor pleasure in anything, good or evil, they can 
say of me. I feel only a slight disgust, and a 
sort of wonder that they presume to write my 
name. I began once a satire upon satire, 1 
which I meant to be very severe ; it was full 
of small knives, in the use of which practice 
would have soon made me very expert. 

1 This fragment, of much personal but little poetical interest, 
was printed for the first time in Professor Dowden's edition of 
Southey's correspondence with Caroline Bowles, and has not yet 
been included among Shelley's works. 



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Shelley's Letters 
XLVII. 

TO HORACE SMITH 

Pisa, 25th January, 1822. 

My dear Smith : — I have delayed this 
fortnight answering your kind letter because 
I was in treaty for a Calderon, which at last 
I have succeeded in procuring at a tolerably 
moderate price. All the other books you 
mention I should be glad to have, together 
with whatever others might fall in your way 
that you might think interesting. 

Will you not think my exactions upon your 
kindness interminable if I ask you to execute 
another commission for me ? It is to buy a 
good pedal harp without great ornament or 
any appendage that would unnecessarily in- 
crease the expense — but good ; nor should 
I object to its being second-hand, if that were 
equally compatible with its being despatched 
immediately. Together with the harp I should 
wish for five or six napoleons' worth of harp 
music, at your discretion. I do not know the 
price of harps at Paris, but I suppose that from 
206 



Shelley's Letters 

seventy to eighty guineas would cover it, and I 
trust to your accustomed kindness, as I want it 
for a present/ to make the immediate advance, 
as if I were to delay, the grace of my compliment 
would be lost. Do not take much trouble 
about it, but simply take what you find, if you 
are so exceedingly kind as to oblige me. 

It had better be sent by Marseilles, through 
some merchant or in any other manner you 
think best, addressed to me at Messrs. Gueb- 
hard & Co., merchants, Leghorn : the books 
may be sent together with it. 

Our party at Pisa is the same as when I 
wrote last. Lord Byron unites us at a weekly 
dinner, when my nerves are generally shaken 
to pieces by sitting up contemplating the rest 
making themselves vats of claret, etc., till three 
o'clock in the morning. We rzgrztyour absence 

1 No doubt to Mrs. Williams ; and it may be concluded with 
equal certainty that the commission was not executed, and that 
the intended harp had to be represented by the guitar, bought, 
according to Trelawny's recollection, at Leghorn, and immortal- 
ized in the matchless verses beginning : 

" Ariel to Miranda — Take 

This slave of music, for the sake 

Of him who is the slave of thee." 

This explains the hitherto obscure allusion in Letter L. : "I 

have contrived to get my musical coals at Newcastle itself." 

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Shelley's Letters 

exceedingly, and Lord Byron has desired me 
to convey his best remembrances to you ; — I 
imagine it is you and not your brother for 
whom they are intended. Hunt was expected, 
and Lord Byron had fitted up a part of his 
palace for his accommodation, when we hear 
that the late violent storms had forced him 
to put back, and that nothing could induce 
Marianne to put to sea again. This, for many 
reasons that I cannot now explain, has pro- 
duced a chaos of perplexities. . . . The re- 
views and journals, they say, continue to attack 
me, but I value neither the fame they can give 
nor the fame they can take away, therefore 
blessed be the name of the reviews. 

Pray, if possible, let the " Nympholept" be 
included in the package. 

Believe me, my dear Smith, 

Your most obliged and affectionate friend, 

P. B. Shelley. 




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Shelley's Letters 
XLVIII. 

TO LEIGH HUNT 

Pisa, 2d March, 1822. 
My dearest Friend: — My last two or 
three letters have, I fear, given you some 
uneasiness, or at least inflicted that portion of 
it which I felt in writing them. The aspect 
of affairs has somewhat changed since the date 
of that in which I expressed a repugnance to 
a continuance of intimacy with Lord Byron, 
so close as that which now exists ; at least, it 
has been changed so far as regards you r.nd 
the intended journal. He expresses again the 
greatest eagerness to undertake it, and proceed 
with it, as well as the greatest confidence in 
you as his associate. He is for ever dilating 
upon his impatience of your delay, and his 
disappointment at your not having already 
arrived. He renews his expressions of dis- 
regard for the opinion of those who advised 
him against this alliance with you, and I 
imagine it will be no very difficult task to 
execute that which you have assigned me, to 

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keep him in heart with the project until your 
arrival. Meanwhile, let my last letters, as far 
as they regard Lord Byron, be as if they had 
not been written. Particular circumstances, 
or rather, I should say, particular dispositions 
in Lord Byron's character, render the close 
and exclusive intimacy with him in which I 
find myself intolerable to me ; thus much, my 
best friend, I will confess and confide to you. 
No feeling of my own shall injure or interfere 
with what is now nearest to them, your interest, 
and I will take care to preserve the little 
influence I may have over this Proteus in 
whom such strange extremes are reconciled, 
until we meet, which we now must, at all 
events, soon do. 

Lord Byron showed me your letter to him, 
which arrived with mine yesterday. How 
shall I thank you for your generous and deli- 
cate defence and explanation of my motives ? 
I fear no misinterpretation from you, and from 
any one else I despise and defy it. 

So you think I can make nothing of 
" Charles the First." Tanto peggio. Indeed, 
I have written nothing for this last two months ; 
a slight circumstance gave a new train to my 

2IO 



Shelley's Letters 

ideas, and shattered the fragile edifice when 
half-built. What motives have I to write? 
I had motives, and I thank the god of my 
own heart they were totally different from those 
of the other apes of humanity who make 
mouths in the glass of the time. But what 
are those motives now ? The only inspiration 
of an ordinary kind I could descend to ac- 
knowledge would be the earning ^ioo for you ; 
and that it seems I cannot. 

Poor Marianne, how ill she seems to have 
been ! Give my best love to her, and tell her 
I hope she is better, and that I know, as soon 
as she can resolve to set sail, that she will be 
better. Your rooms are still ready for you at 
Lord Byron's. I am afraid they will be rather 
hot in the summer ; they were delightful win- 
ter rooms. . . . All happiness attend you, my 
best friend, and believe that I am watching 
over your interest with the vigilance of painful 
affection. Mary will write next post. Adieu. 

Yours, 



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Shelley's Letters 
XLIX. 

TO JOHN GISBORNE 

Pisa, ioth April, 1822. 

My dear Gisborne : — I have received 
" Hellas," which is prettily printed, and with 
fewer mistakes than any poem I have ever 
published. Am I to thank you for the revision 
of the press ? or who acted as midwife to this 
last of my orphans, introducing it to oblivion, 
and me to my accustomed failure ? May the 
cause it celebrates be more fortunate than 
either ! Tell me how you like " Hellas," and 
give me your opinion freely. It was written 
without much care, and in one of those few 
moments of enthusiasm which now seldom 
visit me, and which make me pay dear for their 
visits. I know what to think of cc Adonais," 
but what to think of those who confound it 
with the many bad poems of the day, I know 
not. 

I have been reading over and over again 
" Faust," and always with sensations which no 
other composition excites. It deepens the 
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Shelley's Letters 

gloom and augments the rapidity of ideas, and 
would therefore seem to me an unfit study 
for any person who is a prey to the reproaches 
of memory, and the delusions of an imagina- 
tion not to be restrained. And yet the pleasure 
of sympathizing with emotions known only to 
few, although they derive their sole charm 
from despair, and the scorn of the narrow good 
we can attain in our present state, seems more 
than to ease the pain which belongs to them. 
Perhaps all discontent with the less, to use a 
Platonic sophism, supposes the sense of a just 
claim to the greater, and that we admirers of 
" Faust " are on the right road to paradise. 
Such a supposition is not more absurd, and is 
certainly less demoniacal, than that of Words- 
worth, where he says : 

" This earth, 
Which is the world of all of us, and where 
We find our happiness, or not at all." 

As if, after sixty years' suffering here, we were 
to be roasted alive for sixty million more 
in hell, or charitably annihilated by a coup de 
grace of the bungler who brought us into 
existence at first ! 

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Shelley's Letters 

Have you read Calderon's cc Magico Pro- 
digioso " ? I find a striking similarity between 
" Faust " and this drama, and, if 1 were to ac- 
knowledge Coleridge's distinction, should say 
Goethe was the greatest philosopher, and Cal- 
deron the greatest poet. Cyprian evidently 
furnished the germ of " Faust," as " Faust " 
may furnish the germ of other poems ; although 
it is as different from it in structure and plan 
as the acorn from the oak. I have — imagine 
my presumption — translated several scenes 
from both, as the basis of a paper for our 
journal. I am well content with those from 
Calderon, which, in fact, gave me very little 
trouble ; but those from " Faust," I feel how 
imperfect a representation — even with all the 
license I assume to figure to myself how Goethe 
would have written in English — my words 
convey. No one but Coleridge is capable of 
this work. 

We have seen here a translation of some 
scenes, and indeed the most remarkable ones, 
accompanying those astonishing etchings which 
have been published in England from a Ger- 
man master. It is not bad, and faithful enough, 
but how weak ! how incompetent to represent 
214 



Shelley's Letters 

cc Faust " ! I have only attempted the scenes 
omitted in this translation, and would send you 
that of the " Walpurgisnacht," if I thought 
Oilier would place the postage to my account. 
What etchings those are ! I am never satiated 
with looking at them ; and, I fear, it is the only 
sort of translation of which " Faust " is suscep- 
tible. I never perfectly understood the Hartz 
mountain scene, until I saw the etching ; and 
then Margaret in the summer-house with 
Faust ! The artist makes one envy his happi- 
ness that he can sketch such things with calm- 
ness, which I only dared look upon once, and 
which made my brain swim around only to 
touch the leaf on the opposite side of which I 
knew it was figured. Whether it is that the 
artist has surpassed " Faust," or that the pencil 
surpasses language in some subjects, I know 
not, or that I am more affected by a visible 
image, but the etching certainly excited me far 
more than the poem it illustrated. Do you 
remember the fifty-fourth letter of the first 
part of the " Nouvelle Heloi'se " ? Goethe, in 
a subsequent scene, evidently had that letter in 
his mind, and this etching is an idealism of it. 
So much for the world of shadows ! 
215 



Shelley's Letters 

What think you of Lord Byron's last vol- 
ume ? In my opinion, it contains finer poetry 
than has appeared in England since the pub- 
lication of cc Paradise Regained." cc Cain " is 
apocalyptic, it is a revelation not before com- 
municated to man. I write nothing but by 
fits. I have done some of " Charles I. ; " but 
although the poetry succeeded very well, I 
cannot seize on the conception of the subject 
as a whole, and seldom now touch the canvas. 
You know I don't think much about reviews, 
nor of the fame they give, nor that they take 
away. It is absurd in any review to criticize 
" Adonais," and still more to pretend that the 
verses are bad. <c Prometheus " was never in- 
tended for more than five or six persons. 

And how are you getting on? Do your 
plans still want success ? Do you regret Italy ? 
or anything that Italy contains ? and in case of 
an entire failure in your expectations, do you 
think of returning here? You see the first 
blow has been made at funded property : do 
you intend to confide and invite a second ? 
You would already have saved something per 
cent, if you had invested your property in Tus- 
can land. The best next thing would be to 
216 



Shelley's Letters 

invest it in English, and reside upon it. I 
tremble for the consequences, to you person- 
ally, from a prolonged confidence in the funds. 
Justice, policy, the hopes of the nation and 
renewed institutions, demand your ruin, and I 
for one cannot bring myself to desire what is 
in itself desirable, till you are free. You see 
how liberal I am of advice ; but you know the 
motives that suggest it. What is Henry 
about, and how are his prospects ? Tell him 
that some adventurers are engaged upon a 
steamboat at Leghorn to make the trajet we 
projected. 1 I hope he is charitable enough to 
pray that they may succeed better than we did. 

Remember me most affectionately to Mrs. 
Gisborne, to whom, as well as to yourself, I 
consider that this letter is written. How is 
she, and how are you all in health ? and pray 
tell me what are your plans of life, and how 
Henry succeeds, and whether he is married or 
not? How can I send you such small sums 
as you may want for postages, etc. ? for I do 

1 Shelley never renounced the idea. Williams notes in his 
diary, January 6, 1822 : "After a conversation with S., have seri- 
ous thoughts of taking in hand a steam-yacht to work between 
Leghorn and Genoa." 

217 



Shelley's Letters 

not mean to tax with my unreasonable letters 
both your purse and your patience. We go 
this summer to Spezzia ; but direct as ever to 
Pisa ; Mrs. Mason r will forward our letters. 
If you see anything which you think would 
particularly interest me, pray make Oilier pay 
for sending it out by the post. Give my best 
and affectionate regards to Hogg, to whom I 
do not write at present, imagining that you will 
give him a piece of this letter. 

Ever most faithfully yours, 

P. B. S. 



TO HORACE SMITH 

Pisa, April ii, 1822. 
My dear Smith : — I have as yet received 
neither the "Nympholept," nor his metaphysi- 
cal companions. Time, my lord, has a wallet 
on his back, and I suppose he has bagged them 
by the way. As he has had a good deal of 
alms for oblivion out of me, I think he might 
as well have favoured me this once ; I have, 

1 Lady Mountcashel, Mary Wollstonecraft's pupil, who lived 
at Pisa under this name. 

218 



Shelley's Letters 

indeed, just dropped another mite into his 
treasury, called " Hellas," which I know not 
how to send to you ; but I dare say some fury 
of the Hades of authors will bring one to 
Paris. It is a poem written on the Greek 
cause last summer, a sort of lyrical, dramatic, 
nondescript piece of business. 

You will have heard of a row we have had 
here, which, I dare say, will grow to a serious 
size before it arrives at Paris. It was, in fact, 
a trifling piece of business enough, arising from 
an insult of a drunken dragoon, offered to one 
of our party, and only serious, because one of 
Lord Byron's servants wounded the fellow 
dangerously with a pitchfork. He is now, 
however, recovering, and the echo of the affair 
will be heard long after the original report has 
ceased. 

Lord Byron has read me one or two letters 
of Moore to him, in which Moore speaks with 
great kindness of me ; and, of course, I cannot 
but feel flattered by the approbation of a man, 
my inferiority to whom I am proud to ac- 
knowledge. Amongst other things, however, 
Moore, after giving Lord Byron much good 
advice about public opinion, etc., seems to 

219 



Shelley's Letters 

deprecate my influence over his mind on the 
subject of religion, and to attribute the tone 
assumed in " Cain " to my suggestions. Moore 
cautions him against my influence on this par- 
ticular, with the most friendly zeal ; and it is 
plain that his motive springs from a desire of 
benefiting Lord Byron without degrading me. 
I think you know Moore. Pray assure him 
that I have not the smallest influence over 
Lord Byron in this particular, and if I had, I 
certainly should employ it to eradicate from 
his great mind the delusions of Christianity, 
which, in spite of his reason, seem perpetually 
to recur, and to lay in ambush for the hours 
of sickness and distress. cc Cain " was con- 
ceived many years ago, and begun before I 
saw him last year at Ravenna. How happy 
should I not be to attribute to myself, how- 
ever indirectly, any participation in that im- 
mortal work ! I differ with Moore in thinking 
Christianity useful to the world ; no man of 
sense can think it true; and the alliance of the 
monstrous superstitions of the popular worship 
with the pure doctrines of the theism of such 
men as Moore, turns to the profit of the 
former, and but makes the latter the fountain 
220 



Shelley's Letters 

of its own pollution. I agree with him that 
the doctrines of the French and material phil- 
osophy are as false as they are pernicious ; but 
still they are better than Christianity, inasmuch 
as anarchy is better than despotism ; for this 
reason, that the former is for a season, and 
that the latter is eternal. My admiration of 
the character, no less than of the genius of 
Moore, makes me rather wish that he should 
not have an ill opinion of me. 

Where are you this summer ? For ever in 
Paris ? For ever in France ? May I not 
hope to see you, even for a trip, in Italy ? 
How is Mrs. Smith ? I hope she finds the 
air of France propitious to her health, and 
that your little ones are well. . . . Mine 
grows a fine boy, and is quite well. . . . 

I have contrived to get my musical coals at 
Newcastle itself. My dear Smith, believe me, 
Most faithfully yours, 

p. b. s. 



221 



Shelley's Letters 
LI. 

TO JOHN GISBORNE 

Lerici, June 18, 1822. 
In my doubt as to which of your most in- 
teresting letters I shall answer, I quash the 
business one for the present, as the only part 
of it that requires an answer requires also 
mature consideration. In the first place I 
send you money for postage, as I intend to 
indulge myself in plenty of paper and no 
crossings. Mary will write soon; at present 
she suffers greatly from excess of weakness, 
produced by a severe miscarriage, from which 
she is now slowly recovering. Her situation 
for some hours was alarming, and as she was 
totally destitute of medical assistance I took 
the most decisive resolutions, and by dint of 
making her sit in ice, I succeeded in checking 
the hemorrhage and the fainting fits, so that 
when the physician arrived all danger was 
over, and he had nothing to do but to ap- 
plaud me for my boldness. She is now doing 
well, and the sea-baths will soon restore her. 
222 



Shelley's Letters 

I have written to Oilier to send his account to 
you. The " Adonais " I wished to have had 
a fair chance, both because it was a favourite 
with me, and on account of the memory of 
Keats, who was a poet of great genius, let the 
classic party say what it will. cc Hellas," too, 
I liked on account of the subject. One always 
finds some reason or other for liking one's 
own composition. The cc Epipsychidion " I 
cannot look at ; the person whom it celebrates 
was a cloud instead of a Juno ; and poor Ixion 
starts from the Centaur that was the offspring 
of his own embrace. If you are curious, how- 
ever, to hear what I am and have been, it will 
tell you something thereof. It is an idealized 
history of my life and feelings. I think one is 
always in love with something or other; the 
error, and I confess it is not easy for spirits 
cased in flesh and blood to avoid it, consists in 
seeking in a mortal image the likeness of what 
is, perhaps, eternal. 

Hunt is not yet arrived, but I expect him 
every day. I shall see little of Lord Byron, 
nor shall I permit Hunt to form the inter- 
mediate link between him and me. I detest 
all society — almost all, at least — and Lord 
223 



Shelley's Letters 

Byron is the nucleus of all that is hateful and 
tiresome in it. He will be half-mad to hear 
of these memoirs. 1 As to me, you know my 
supreme indifference to such affairs, except 
that I must confess I am sometimes amused 
by the ridiculous mistakes of these writers. 
Tell me a little what they say of me besides 
being an atheist. One thing I regret in it, 
I dread lest it should injure Hunt's prospects 
in the establishment of the journal, for Lord 
Byron is so mentally capricious that the least 
impulse drives him from his anchorage. The 
Williamses are now on a visit to us, and they 
are people who are very pleasing to me. But 
words are not the instruments of our inter- 
course. I like Jane more and more, and I 
find Williams the most amiable of companions. 
She has a taste for music, and an elegance of 
form and motions that compensate in some 
degree for the lack of literary refinement. You 
know my gross ideas of music, and will forgive 
me when I say that I listen the whole evening 

1 A worthless anonymous compilation by a person named 
Watkins, entitled, " Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the 
Right Honourable Lord Byron, with Anecdotes of Some of His 
Contemporaries." London, 1822. Shelley is therein designated 
as " Byron's chief disciple." 

224 



Shelley's Letters 

on our terrace to the simple melodies with 
excessive delight. I have a boat here. It 
cost me £$o, and reduced me to some diffi- 
culty in point of money. However, it is swift 
and beautiful, and appears quite a vessel. 
Williams is captain, and we drive along in this 
delightful bay in the evening wind under the 
summer moon until earth appears another 
world. Jane brings her guitar, and if the past 
and the future could be obliterated, 1 the present 
would content me so well that I could say 
with Faust to the passing moment, " Remain 
thou, thou art so beautiful." Claire is with 
us, and the death of her child seems to have 
restored her to tranquillity. Her character is 
somewhat altered. She is vivacious and talka- 
tive ; and though she teases me sometimes, I 
like her. . . . Lord Byron, who is at Leghorn, 
has fitted up a splendid vessel, a small schooner 
on the American model, and Trelawny is to 
be captain. How long the fiery spirit of our 
pirate will accommodate itself to the caprice of 
the poet remains to be seen. . . . 

1 " The past and future were forgot 

As they had been, and would be, not." 

— Lines in the Bay of Lerici. 
Written nearly at this time. 

225 



Shelley's Letters 

I write little now. It is impossible to com- 
pose except under the strong excitement of an 
assurance of finding sympathy in what you 
write. Imagine Demosthenes reciting a Philip- 
pic to the waves of the Atlantic. Lord Byron 
is in this respect fortunate. He touched the 
chord to which a million hearts responded, and 
the coarse music which he produced to please 
them disciplined him to the perfection to 
which he now approaches. I do not go on 
with "Charles the First." I feel too little 
certainty of the future, and too little satisfaction 
with regard to the past, to undertake any 
subject seriously and deeply. I stand, as it 
were, upon a precipice, which I have ascended 
with great and cannot descend without greater 
peril, and I am content if the heaven above 
me is calm for the passing moment. 

You don't tell me what you think of " Cain." 
You send me the opinion of the populace, 
which you know I do not esteem. I have read 
several more of the plays of Calderon. cc Los 
Dos Amantes del Cielo " is the. finest, if I 
except one scene in the cc Devocion de la Cruz." 
I read Greek, and think about writing. 

I do not think much of Emma's not admir- 
226 



Shelley's Letters 

ing Metastasio ; the Nil admirari> however 
justly applied, seems to me a bad sign in a 
young person. I had rather a pupil of mine 
had conceived a frantic passion for Marini 
himself than that she had found out the critical 
defects of the most deficient author. When 
she becomes of her own accord full of genuine 
admiration for the finest scene in the " Purga- 
torio," or the opening of the " Paradiso," or 
some other neglected piece of excellence, hope 
great things. Adieu, I must not exceed the 
limits of my paper, however little scrupulous 
I seem about those of your patience. 

p. b. s. 
I waited three days to get this pen mended, 
and at last was obliged to write. 

LII. 

TO HORACE SMITH 

Lerici, June 29, 1822. 

My dear Smith : — Pray thank Moore for 

his obliging message. I wish I could as easily 

convey my sense of his genius and character. 

I should have written to him on the subject 

227 



Shelley's Letters 

of my late letter, but that I doubted how far 
I was justified in doing so ; although, indeed, 
Lord Byron made no secret of his communica- 
tion to me. It seems to me that things have 
now arrived at such a crisis as requires every 
man plainly to utter his sentiments on the 
inefficiency of the existing religious, no less 
than political systems, for restraining and guid- 
ing mankind. Let us see the truth, whatever 
that may be. The destiny of man can scarcely 
be so degraded, that he was born only to die ; 
and if such should be the case, delusions, 
especially the gross and preposterous ones of 
the existing religion, can scarcely be supposed 
to exalt it. If every man said what he thought, 
it could not subsist a day. But all, more or 
less, subdue themselves to the element that 
surrounds them, and contribute to the evils 
they lament by the hypocrisy that springs from 
them. 

England appears to be in a desperate condi- 
tion, Ireland still worse ; and no class of those 
who subsist on the public labour will be per- 
suaded that their claims on it must be dimin- 
ished. But the government must content 
itself with less in taxes, the landowner must 
228 



Shelley's Letters 

submit to receive less rent, and the fund-holder 
a diminished interest, or they will all get noth- 
ing or something worse than nothing. I once 
thought to study these affairs, and write or act 
in them. I am glad that my good genius said 
Refrain. I see little public virtue, and I fore- 
see that the contest will be one of blood and 
gold, two elements which, however much to 
my taste in my pockets and my veins, I have 
an objection to out of them. 

Lord Byron continues at Leghorn, and has 
just received from Genoa a most beautiful 
little yacht, which he caused to be built there. 
He has written two new cantos of " Don 
Juan," but I have not seen them. I have just 
received a letter from Hunt, who has arrived 
at Genoa. As soon as I hear that he has sailed, 
I shall weigh anchor in my little schooner, 
and give him chase to Leghorn, where I must 
occupy myself in some arrangements for him 
with Lord Byron. Between ourselves, I greatly 
fear that this alliance will not succeed, for I, 
who could never have been regarded more 
than the link of the two thunderbolts, cannot 
now consent to be even that; and how long 
the alliance between the wren and the eagle 
229 



Shelley's Letters 

may continue, I will not prophesy. Pray do 
not hint my doubts on the subject to any one, 
as they might do harm to Hunt; and they 
may be groundless. 

I still inhabit this divine bay, reading Span- 
ish dramas, and sailing and listening to the 
most enchanting music. We have some friends 
on a visit to us, and my only regret is that the 
summer must ever pass, or that Mary has not 
the same predilection for this place that I have, 
which would induce me never to shift my 
quarters. 

Farewell, — believe me ever your obliged 
and affectionate friend, 

P. B. Shelley. 



LIII. 

TO MRS. WILLIAMS 

Pisa, July 4, 1822. 
You will probably see Williams before I can 
disentangle myself from the affairs with which 
I am now surrounded. I return to Leghorn 
to-night, and shall urge him to sail with the 
first fair wind, without expecting me. I have 
230 



Shelley's Letters 

thus the pleasure of contributing to your hap- 
piness when deprived of every other, and of 
leaving you no other subject of regret but the 
absence of one scarcely worth regretting. I 
fear you are solitary and melancholy at Villa 
Magni, and, in the intervals of the greater and 
more serious distress in which I am compelled 
to sympathize here, I figure to myself the 
countenance which has been the source of such 
consolation to me, shadowed by a veil of 
sorrow. 

How soon those hours passed, and how 
slowly they return, to pass so soon again, and 
perhaps for ever, in which we have lived to- 
gether so intimately and happily ! Adieu, my 
dearest friend. I only write these lines for the 
pleasure of tracing what will meet your eyes. 
Mary will tell you all the news. s. 




231 



Letter from Mrs. Shelley 
to Mrs. Gisborne 



/^f^^^k^^r^^^^^^Mi 


^Uj>k. 


''CTy«ini' ' 








Jl. jRJV<.j. 






pNt\SJm^J ^Sr— ■ *«T*r?7^7S4« 




^•;*. : ?=i-'- ■•-•-- -I <.." 


i ?r /<iS' 





Letter from Mrs. Shelley 
to Mrs. Gisborne 1 




August 15 th, 1822. 

SAID in a letter to Peacock, my 
dear Mrs. Gisborne, that I would 
send you some account of the last 
miserable months of my disastrous 
life. From day to day I have put this off, 
but I will now endeavour to fulfil my design. 
The scene of my existence is closed, and 
though there be no pleasure in retracing the 

1 Some extracts from this letter, derived from a transcript by 
Mr. Gisborne, were published by the editor of this volume in 
the Fortnightly Review for June, 1878 ; and the whole of it was 
printed from the original by Mr. Forman in Macmillarts Maga- 
zine for June, 1880, and subsequently republished in the fourth 
volume of his edition of Shelley's prose works. He has adhered 
to the MS. with scrupulous fidelity, except for some trifling 
changes in orthography and punctuation. A few more ortho- 
graphical corrections have been made in the present recension, 
and the punctuation has been recast throughout. 

235 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

scenes that have preceded the event which has 
crushed my hopes, yet there seems to be a 
necessity in doing so, and I obey the impulse 
that urges me. 

I wrote to you either at the end of May or 
the beginning of June. I described to you the 
place we were living in, our desolate house, 
the beauty yet strangeness of the scenery, and 
the delight Shelley took in all this : he never 
was in better health or spirits than during this 
time. I was not well in body or mind. My 
nerves were wound up to the utmost irritation, 
and the sense of misfortune hung over my 
spirits. No words can tell you how I hated 
our house and the country about it. Shelley 
reproached me for this ; his health was good, 
and the place was quite after his own heart. 
What could I answer ? That the people were 
wild and hateful ; that, though the country 
was beautiful, yet I like a more countrified 
place ; that there was great difficulty in liv- 
ing ; that all our Tuscans would leave us, and 
that the very jargon of these Genoese was 
disgusting. 

This was all I had to say, but no words 
could describe my feelings ; the beauty of the 
236 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

woods made me weep and shudder: so vehement 
was my feeling of dislike that I used to rejoice 
when the winds and the waves permitted me to 
go out in the boat, so that I was not obliged 
to take my usual walk among tree-shaded 
paths, alleys of vine-festooned trees — all that 
before I doted on, and that now weighed on 
me. My only moments of peace were on 
board that unhappy boat, when, lying down 
with my head on his knee, I shut my eyes, 
and felt the wind and our swift motion alone. 

My ill-health might account for much of 
this ; bathing in the sea somewhat relieved 
me : but on the 8th of June, I think it was, 
I was threatened with a miscarriage, and, after 
a week of great ill-health, on Sunday the 16th 
this took place at eight in the morning. I was 
so ill that for seven hours I lay nearly lifeless 
— kept from fainting by brandy, vinegar, eau 
de Cologne, etc. At length ice was brought 
to our solitude : it came before the doctor, so 
Claire and Jane were afraid of using it ; but 
Shelley overruled them, and by an unsparing 
application of it I was restored. They all 
thought, and so did I at one time, that I was 
about to die. I hardly wish that I had ; my 
237 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

own Shelley could never have lived without 
me, the sense of eternal misfortune would 
have pressed too heavily upon him, and what 
would have become of my poor babe ? My 
convalescence was slow, and during it a strange 
occurrence happened to retard it. 

But first I must describe our house to you. 
The floor on which we lived was thus : 



5 


7 

2 


3 


6 


4 


i 



i is a terrace that went the whole length of our 
house, and was precipitous to the sea ; i the 
large dining-hall ; 3 a private staircase ; 4 my 
bedroom ; 5 . Mrs. Williams's bedroom ; 6 
Shelley's ; and 7 the entrance from the great 
staircase. 

Now to return. As I said, Shelley was at 

first in perfect health, but having overfatigued 

himself one day, and then the fright my illness 

gave him, caused a return of nervous sensations, 

238 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

and visions as bad as in his worst times. I think 
it was the Saturday after my illness, while, yet 
unable to walk, I was confined to my bed. In 
the middle of the night I was awoke by hearing 
him scream, and come rushing into my room. 
I was sure that he was asleep, and tried to wake 
him by calling on him ; but he continued to 
scream, which inspired me with such a panic 
that I jumped out of bed, and ran across the 
hall to Mrs. Williams's room, where I fell 
through weakness, though I was so frightened 
that I got up again immediately. She let me 
in, and Williams went to Shelley, who had 
been awakened by my getting out of bed. 
He said that he had not been asleep, and that 
it was a vision that he saw that had frightened 
him. But as he declared that he had not 
screamed it was certainly a dream and no wak- 
ing vision. 

What had frightened him was this : He 
dreamt that, lying as he did in bed, Edward 
and Jane came in to him ; they were in the 
most horrible condition, their bodies lacerated, 
their bones starting through their skin, their 
faces pale yet stained with blood ; they could 
hardly walk, but Edward was the weakest, and 
239 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

Jane was supporting him. Edward said, " Get 
up, Shelley, the sea is flooding the house, and 
it is all coming down." Shelley got up, he 
thought, and went to his window that looked 
on the terrace and the sea, and thought he saw 
the sea rushing in. Suddenly his vision 
changed, and he saw the figure of himself 
strangling me ; that had made him rush into 
my room, yet, fearful of frightening me, he 
dared not approach the bed, when my jumping 
out awoke him, or, as he phrased it, caused his 
vision to vanish. All this was frightful enough, 
and talking it over the next morning, he told 
me that he had had many visions lately. He 
had seen the figure of himself, which met him 
as he walked on the terrace, and said to him, 
cc How long do you mean to be content ? " ■ 
— no very terrific words, and certainly not 
prophetic of what has occurred. 

But Shelley had often seen these figures 
when ill ; but the strangest thing is that Mrs. 
Williams saw him. Now Jane, although a 
woman of sensibility, has not much imagina- 

1 See the letter to Gisborne of June 18, at p. 225 of this 
selection, which makes it evident that the vision was inspired by 
Shelley's study of " Faust," and not, as previously stated, by a 
scene in Calderon. 

240 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

tion, and is not in the slightest degree nervous, 
either in dreams or otherwise. She was stand- 
ing one day, the day before I was taken ill, at 
a window that looked on the terrace, with 
Trelawny. It was day ; she saw, as she 
thought, Shelley pass by the window, as he 
often was then, without a coat or jacket. He 
passed again. Now as he passed both times 
the same way, and as from the side toward 
which he went each time there was no way to 
get back except past the window again, except 
over a wall twenty feet from the ground, she 
was struck at her seeing him pass twice thus, 
and looked out ; and seeing him no more, she 
cried, <c Good God ! can Shelley have leapt 
from the wall ? Where can he be gone ? " 
cc Shelley ! " said Trelawny, " no Shelley has 
passed. What do you mean ? " Trelawny 
says that she trembled exceedingly when she 
heard this, and it proved indeed that Shelley 
had never been on the terrace, and was far off 
at the time she saw him. Well, we thought no 
more of these things, and I slowly got 
better. 

Having heard from Hunt that he had sailed 
from Genoa on Monday, July ist, Shelley, 
241 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

Edward, and Captain Roberts, the gentleman 
who built our boat, departed in our boat for 
Leghorn to receive him. I was then just better, 
had begun to crawl from my bedroom to the 
terrace, but bad spirits succeeded to ill-health, 
and this departure of Shelley's seemed to add 
insufferably to my misery. I could not endure 
that he should go. I called him back two or 
three times, and told him that if I did not see 
him soon I would go to Pisa with the child. I 
cried bitterly when he went away. They went, 
and Jane, Claire, and I remained alone with 
the children. I could not walk out, and 
though I gradually gathered strength, it was 
slowly, and my ill spirits increased. In my 
letters to him I entreated him to return. " The 
feeling that some misfortune would happen," 
I said, cc haunted me." I feared for the child, 
for the idea of danger connected with him 
never struck me. 

When Jane and Claire took their evening 
walk I used to patrol the terrace, oppressed 
with wretchedness, yet gazing on the most 
beautiful scene in the world. This Gulf of 
Spezzia is subdivided into many small bays, 
of which ours was far the most beautiful ; the 
242 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

two horns of the bay, so to express myself, 
were wood-covered promontories crowned with 
castles. At the foot of these on the farthest 
was Lerici, on the nearest San Terenzo, 1 Lerici 
being above a mile by land from us, and San 
Terenzo about a hundred or two yards. Trees 
covered the hills that enclosed this bay, and 
their beautiful groups were picturesquely con- 

1 Mrs. Shelley always writes the name of the hamlet near 
which Shelley resided Sanf Arenzo ; Mr. Forman shows that 
according to the most recent maps and the Italian post-office it 
should be San Terenzio or San Terenzo, and Mr. Alfred Austin, 
in a letter to the Athenceum, says that this form is a corruption of 
Sanf Erenzo. No such saint as Arenzo or Erenzo is to be found 
in the calendar, but Terenzio or Terenzo does exist there, although 
it may be questioned whether he ever existed anywhere else. He 
is the patron saint of Pesaro, his festival is on September 24th, 
and there is a special office in his honour, printed in 1 592 and 
several times subsequently. The legendary character of his 
acts, according to which he suffered martyrdom under a petty 
Pannonian king named Dagnus, during the persecution of the 
Emperor Decius, has been demonstrated by Annibale Giordani 
in his treatise " Di San Terenzio Martire" Pesaro, 1776. They 
appear to be a fabrication of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. 
The improbability of so very obscure a saint, patron of a town 
on the Adriatic, having given name to a village on the Gulf of 
Spezzia, may perhaps warrant the conjecture that the name was 
originally Santo Lorenzo, contracted into Santo Renzo, and cor- 
rupted into Sant' Arenzo. It has been thought best on the 
whole to adopt the orthography in the text, as being, according 
to Mr. Austin, that at present recognized by the Italian post- 
office. 

243 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

trasted with the rocks, the castle, and the town. 
The sea lay far extended in front, while to the 
west we saw the promontory and islands which 
formed one of the extreme boundaries of the 
gulf. To see the sun set upon this scene, 
the stars shine, and the moon rise, was a sight 
of wondrous beauty ; but to me it added only 
to my wretchedness. I repeated to myself all 
that another would have said to console me, 
and told myself the tale of love, peace, and 
competence which I enjoyed. But I answered 
myself by tears — did not my William die ? 
And did I hold my Percy by a firmer tenure ? 
Yet I thought when he, when my Shelley, 
returns, I shall be happy. He will comfort 
me, if my boy be ill he will restore him and 
encourage me. 

I had a letter or two from Shelley mention- 
ing the difficulties he had in establishing the 
Hunts, and that he was unable to fix the 
time of his return. Thus a week passed. 
On Monday 8th Jane had a letter from 
Edward, dated Saturday : he said that he 
waited at Leghorn for Shelley, who was at 
Pisa ; that Shelley's return was certain ; " but," 
he continued, "if he should not come by 
244 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

Monday, I will come in a felucca, and you 
may expect me Tuesday evening at furthest." 

This was Monday, the fatal Monday, but 
with us it was stormy all day, and we did not 
at all suppose that they could put to sea. At 
twelve at night we had a thunder-storm ; Tues- 
day it rained all day and was calm — wept on 
their graves. On Wednesday the wind was 
fair from Leghorn, and in the evening several 
feluccas arrived thence. One brought word 
that they had sailed on Monday, but we did 
not believe them. Thursday was another day 
of fair wind, and when twelve at night came, 
and we did not see the tall sails of the little 
boat double the promontory before us, we 
began to fear, not the truth, but some illness, 
some disagreeable news for their detention. 

Jane got so uneasy, that she determined to 
proceed the next day to Leghorn in a boat 
to see what was the matter. Friday came, 
and with it a heavy sea and bad wind. Jane, 
however, resolved to be rowed to Leghorn, 
since no boat could sail, and busied herself in 
preparations. I wished her to wait for letters, 
since Friday was letter day. She would not, 
but the sea detained her ; the swell rose so 
245 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

that no boat would venture out. At twelve at 
noon our letters came ; there was one from 
Hunt to Shelley ; it said, " Pray write to tell 
us how you got home, for they say that you 
had bad weather after you sailed on Monday, 
and we are anxious." The paper fell from me. 
I trembled all over. Jane read it. " Then 
it is all over ! " she said. " No, my dear Jane," 
I cried, " it is not all over, but this suspense 
is dreadful Come with me, we will go to 
Leghorn ; we will post to be swift, and learn 
our fate." 

We crossed to Lerici, despair in our hearts ; 
they raised our spirits there by telling us that 
no accident had been heard of, and that it 
must have been known, etc. But still our 
fear was great, and without resting we posted 
to Pisa. It must have been fearful to see us 
— two poor, wild, aghast creatures — driving, 
like Matilda, toward the sea to learn if we 
were to be for ever doomed to misery. I 
knew that Hunt was at Pisa at Lord Byron's 
house, but I thought that Lord Byron was at 
Leghorn. I settled that we should drive to 
Casa Lanfranchi, that I should get out and 
ask the fearful question of Hunt, cc Do you 
246 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

know anything of Shelley ? " On entering 
Pisa the idea of seeing Hunt for the first time 
for four years under such circumstances, and 
asking him such a question, was so terrific to 
me, that it was with difficulty that I prevented 
myself from going into convulsions. My 
struggles were dreadful. They knocked at 
the door, and some one called out " Chi e ? " 
It was the Guiccioli's maid. Lord Byron was 
in Pisa. Hunt was in bed, so I was to see 
Lord Byron instead of him. This was a great 
relief to me ; I staggered up-stairs ; the Guic- 
cioli came to meet me smiling, while I could 
hardly say, cc Where is he — sapete alcuna cosa 
di Shelley ? " They knew nothing ; he had 
left Pisa on Sunday ; on Monday he had 
sailed ; there had been bad weather Monday 
afternoon ; more they knew not. 

Both Lord Byron and the lady have told 
me since that on that terrific evening I looked 
more like a ghost than a woman ; light seemed 
to emanate from my features, my face was very 
white, I looked like marble. Alas, I had risen 
almost from a bed of sickness for this journey. 
I had travelled all day ; it was now twelve at 
night, and we, refusing to rest, proceeded to 
247 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

Leghorn — not in despair — no, for then we 
must have died, but with sufficient hope to 
keep up the agitation of the spirits which was 
all my life. It was past two in the morning 
when we arrived. They took us to the wrong 
inn ; neither Trelawny nor Captain Roberts 
were there, nor did we exactly know where 
they were, so we were obliged to wait until 
daylight. We threw ourselves drest on our 
beds, and slept a little, but at six o'clock we 
went to one or two inns to ask for one or the 
other of these gentlemen. We found Roberts 
at the Globe. He came down to us with a 
face which seemed to tell us that the worst was 
true, and here we learned all that had occurred 
during the week they had been absent from us, 
and under what circumstances they had departed 
on their return. 

Shelley had passed most of the time at Pisa, 
arranging the affairs of the Hunts, and screw- 
ing Lord Byron's mind to the sticking-place 
about the journal. He had found this a diffi- 
cult task at first, but at length he had succeeded 
to his heart's content with both points. Mrs. 
Mason said that she saw him in better health 
and spirits than she had ever known him, when 
248 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

he took leave of her Sunday, July 7th, his face 
burnt by the sun, and his heart light that he 
had succeeded in rendering the Hunts toler- 
ably comfortable. Edward had remained at 
Leghorn. On Monday, July 8th, during the 
morning they were employed in buying many 
things — eatables, etc., for our solitude. There 
had been a thunder-storm early, but about noon 
the weather was fine, and the wind right fair 
for Lerici. They were impatient to be gone. 
Roberts said, " Stay until to-morrow to see if 
the weather is settled ; " and Shelley might 
have stayed, but Edward was in so great an 
anxiety to reach home — saying they would 
get there in seven hours with that wind — that 
they sailed, Shelley being in one of those ex- 
travagant fits of good spirits in which you have 
sometimes seen him. Roberts went out to the 
end of the mole and watched them out of sight. 
They sailed at once, and went off at the rate of 
about seven knots. About three, Roberts, who 
was still on the mole, saw wind coming from 
the gulf, or rather what the Italians call a tem- 
porale. Anxious to know how the boat would 
weather the storm, he got leave to go up the 
tower, and with the glass discovered them 
249 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

about ten miles out at sea, off Via Reggio ; 
they were taking in their topsails. " The haze 
of the storm," he said, cc hid them from me, 
and I saw them no more. 1 When the storm 

1 " It was almost dark, although only half-past six o'clock. 
The sea was of the colour, and looked as solid and smooth as a 
sheet of lead, and covered with an oily scum. Gusts of wind 
swept over without ruffling it, and big drops of rain fell on its 
surface, rebounding, as if they could not penetrate it." — Tre- 
lawny, " Recollections" p. ny. There is a wonderfully prophetic 
anticipation of the catastrophe in Mrs. Shelley's " Valperga," 
which was indeed not published until 1823, but which, as appears 
by letters from Shelley to Horace Smith and Mrs. Godwin, was 
completed and in Godwin's hands before May, 1822. The fate 
of the heroine, Euthanasia (the very name seems prophetic), is 
thus described: 

" Euthanasia stepped into the boat ; its commander sat beside 
her ; and the men took their oars ; she waved her hand to her 
guide saying, ' Farewell, may God bless you ! ' she added in a 
low tone, half to herself — ' They speak Italian also in Sicily.' 

" These were the last words she ever spoke to any one who 
returned to tell the tale. The countryman stood upon the beach ; 
he saw the boat moor beside the vessel ; he saw its crew ascend 
the dark sides. The boat was drawn up ; the sails were set ; and 
they bore out to sea, receding slowly with many tacks, for the 
wind was contrary ; the vessel faded on the sight ; and he turned 
about and speeded to Lucca. 

" The wind changed to a more northerly direction during the 
night ; and the land-breeze of the morning filled their sails, so 
that, although slowly, they dropt down southward. About noon 
they met a Pisan vessel, who bade them beware of a Genoese 
squadron, which was cruising off Corsica : so they bore in nearer 
the shore. At sunset that day a fierce sirocco rose, accompanied 
by thunder and lightning, such as is seldom seen during the 
250 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

cleared I looked again, fancying that I should 
see them on their return to us, but there was 
no boat on the sea." 

This, then, was all we knew, yet we did not 
despair ; they might have been driven over to 
Corsica, and, not knowing the coast, have gone 
God knows where. Reports favoured this be- 
lief. It was even said that they had been seen 
in the gulf. I resolved to return with all pos- 
sible speed ; we sent a courier to go from tower 
to tower along the coast to know if anything had 
been seen or found, and at nine a. m. we quitted 

winter season. Presently they saw huge dark columns, descend- 
ing from heaven, and meeting the sea, which boiled beneath; 
they were borne on by the storm, and scattered by the wind. The 
rain came down in sheets ; and the hail clattered, as it fell to its 
grave in the ocean ; the ocean was lashed into such waves that, 
many miles inland, during the pauses of the wind, the hoarse and 
constant murmurs of the far-off sea made the well-housed lands- 
man mutter one more prayer for those exposed to its fury. 

" Such was the storm, as it was seen from shore. Nothing 
more was ever known of the Sicilian vessel which bore Eutha- 
nasia. It never reached its destined port, nor were any of those 
on board ever after seen. The sentinels who watched near 
Vado, a town on the sea beach of the Maremma, found on the 
following day that the waves had washed on shore some of the 
wrecks of a vessel ; they picked up a few planks and a broken 
mast, round which, tangled with some of its cordage, was a white 
silk handkerchief, such a one as had bound the tresses of Eu- 
thanasia the night that she had embarked, and in its knot were 
a few golden hairs." 

251 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

Leghorn, stopped but one moment at Pisa, and 
proceeded toward Lerici. When at two miles 
from Via Reggio we rode down to that town to 
know if they knew anything. Here our calam- 
ity first began to break on us. A little boat 
and a water-cask had been found five miles off. 
They had manufactured a piccolissima lancia of 
thin planks stitched by a shoemaker, just to 
let them run on shore without wetting them- 
selves, as our boat drew four feet of water. 
The description of that found tallied with this, 
but then this boat was very cumbersome, and 
in bad weather they might have been easily led 
to throw it overboard. The cask frightened 
me most, but the same reason might in some 
sort be given for that. I must tell you that 
Jane and I were not now alone. Trelawny 
accompanied us back to our home. We jour- 
neyed on and reached the Magra about half- 
past ten p.m. I cannot describe to you what I 
felt in the first moment when, fording this 
river, I felt the water splash about our wheels. 
I was suffocated. I gasped for breath. I 
thought I should have gone into convulsions, 
and I struggled violently that Jane might not 
perceive it. Looking down the river, I saw 
252 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

the two great lights burning at the foce : a 
voice from within me seemed to cry aloud, 
That is his grave. 

After passing the river I gradually recovered. 
Arriving at Lerici we were obliged to cross our 
little bay in a boat. San Terenzo was illumi- 
nated for a festa. What a scene ! The waving 
sea, the sirocco wind, the lights of the town to- 
ward which we rowed, and our own desolate 
hearts, that coloured all with a shroud. We 
landed ; nothing had been heard of them. This 
was Saturday, July 13 th, and thus we waited 
until Thursday, July 25th, thrown about by 
hope and fear. We sent passengers along the 
coast toward Genoa and to Via Reggio — noth- 
ing had been found more than the lancetta. 
Reports were brought us : we hoped ; and yet 
to tell you all the agony we endured during those 
twelve days would be to make you conceive a 
universe of pain, each moment intolerable, and 
giving place to one still worse. The people of 
the country too added to one's discomfort ; they 
are like wild savages. On festas the men and 
women and children in different bands — the 
sexes always separate — pass the whole night 
in dancing on the sands close to our door, 
253 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

running into the sea, then back again, and 
screaming all the time one perpetual air — the 
most detestable in the world. Then the si- 
rocco perpetually blew, and the sea for ever 
moaned their dirge. On Thursday 25th Tre- 
lawny left us to go to Leghorn to see what was 
doing, or what could be done. On Friday I 
was very ill, but as evening came on I said to 
Jane, " If anything had been found on the coast 
Trelawny would have returned to let us know. 
He has not returned, so I hope." About seven 
o'clock p. m. he did return. All was over : all 
was quiet now ; they had been found washed 
on shore. Well, all this was to be endured. 

Well, what more have I to say ? The 
next day we returned to Pisa, and here we 
are still. Days pass away, one after another, 
and we live thus. We are all together — we 
shall quit Italy together. Jane must proceed 
to London. If letters do not alter my views, 
I shall remain in Paris. Thus we live, seeing 
the Hunts now and then. Poor Hunt has 
suffered terribly, as you may guess. Lord 
Byron is very kind to me, and comes with the 
Guiccioli to see me often. To-day — this 
day — the sun shining in the sky — they are 
254 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

gone to the desolate seacoast to perform the 
last offices to their earthly remains, Hunt, Lord 
Byron, and Trelawny. The quarantine laws 
would not permit us to remove them sooner, 
and now only on condition that we burn them 
to ashes. That I do not dislike. His rest 
shall be at Rome beside my child, where one 
day I also shall join them. " Adonais " is not 
Keats's ; it is his own elegy. He bids you 
there go to Rome. I have seen the spot 
where he now lies, the sticks that mark the 
spot where the sands cover him. He shall not 
be there, it is too near Via Reggio. They are 
now about this fearful office — and I live. 

One more circumstance I will mention. As 
I said, he took leave of Mrs. Mason in high 
spirits on Sunday. " Never," said she, " did 
I see him look happier than the last glance I 
had of his countenance." On Monday he was 
lost; on Monday night she dreamt that she 
was somewhere, she knew not where, and he 
came looking very pale, and fearfully melan- 
choly. She said to him, " You look ill, you 
are tired ; sit down and eat." " No," he re- 
plied, " I shall never eat more, I have not a 
soldo left in the world." " Nonsense," said 
255 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

she, " this is no inn, you need not pay." cc Per- 
haps," he answered, " it is the worse for that." 
Then she awoke, and going to sleep again she 
dreamt that my Percy was dead, and she awoke 
crying bitterly, so bitterly and felt so miserable 
that she said to herself, cc Why, if the little boy 
should die I should not feel it in this manner." 
She was so struck with these dreams, that she 
mentioned them to her servant the next day, 
saying she hoped all was well with us. 

Well, here is my story — the last story I 
shall have to tell. All that might have been 
bright in my life is now despoiled. I shall 
live to improve myself, to take care of my 
child, and render myself worthy to join him. 
Soon my weary pilgrimage will begin. I rest 
now, but soon I must leave Italy, and then — 
there is an end of all but despair. Adieu ! I 
hope you are well and happy. I have an idea 
that while he was at Pisa he received a letter 
from you that I have never seen, so not know- 
ing where to direct, I shall send this letter to 
Peacock. I shall send it open ; he may be 
glad to read it. 

Yours ever truly, 

Mary W. S. 
256 



Mrs. Shelley's Letter 

Pisa, 1 5th August, 1822. 
I shall probably write to you soon again. I 
have left out a material circumstance. A fish- 
ing-boat saw them go down. It was about 
four in the afternoon. They saw the boy at 
masthead, when baffling winds struck the 
sails. They had looked away a moment, and 
looking again, the boat was gone. This is 
their story, but there is little doubt that these 
men might have saved them, at least Edward, 
who could swim. They could not, they said, 
get near her, but three-quarters of an hour 
after passed over the spot where they had seen 
her. They protested no wreck of her was 
visible, but Roberts, going on board their 
boat, found several spars belonging to her. 
Perhaps they let them perish to obtain these. 
Trelawny thinks he can get her up, since an- 
other fisherman thinks that he has found the 
spot where she lies, having drifted near shore. 
Trelawny does this to know perhaps the cause 
of her wreck, but I care little about it. 

THE END. 



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